Murray brings her nursing and administrative talents to resourceLink, a telemedicine program that serves patients across the state.

"It's been a wonderful personal experience for me," said Murray, who has been active in convincing the Iowa Legislature to support resourceLink.

The resourceLink process is amazingly simple, using only a 13-inch television with a small camera mounted on top, and a standard telephone line. A resourceLink nurse calls the patient at an appointed time and they visit face-to-face via the telemedicine connection. At the same time, the nurse can monitor blood pressure, heart rate, and weight through peripheral monitoring devices.

Murray said that the system works best for people with chronic diseases like diabetes, heart conditions, lung ailments, and hypertension.

"Most of our patients were faced with multiple visits and re-visits to physician's offices, emergency rooms–running up expenses," she said. "We try to keep them in their home, reassure them and make sure they are keeping up with their medicines."

Over the past three years, Murray and her staff have served 110 patients from 66 communities, and the number grows annually.

For Murray, it's tremendously satisfying to know that she and her staff are helping to give patients a better quality of life.

"We strive to help them take better care of themselves at home, where they want to be," she said. "We help them be compliant with their health care needs and give them a feeling they're in control–empowering them."

She said that many of the patients face difficult socioeconomic conditions and poor family support–"things that hinder them from taking care of themselves well. Sometimes our nurse is the only other human being checking on them for days at a time," Murray said.

Another major goal of resourceLink is to control health care costs. "Our visits cost around $50 compared to an actual home care visit that ranges from $90 to $110," she said; but Murray stressed that her office does not take the place of a visiting nurse. "This is an adjunct therapy along with visiting nurses or other home care agencies," she said.

Maralee Geiser, RN, makes most of the calls, which usually last 15 to 20 minutes. "She came to us with 14 years of actual visiting nurse home experience, which was a great bonus," Murray said.

Geiser wholeheartedly endorses the program. "I don't have to battle the bad weather; I actually get to spend more time with my patients, one-on-one," she said.

Both women are proud of the fact that, since the beginning, resourceLink has never missed a patient call.

"It could be snowing or sleeting outside, but as long as the electricity stays up, we keep our patient visits," Murray said.

While she sometimes misses hands-on care, Geiser usually meets the patients before they enter the program. "Then the relationship builds as we go along and after a while, they really open up to me. They seem to like the eye-to-eye contact," she said.

Patients are referred to resourceLink either by their physicians or the care management program at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

Murray is working hard to convince third-party payors to add resourceLink as a benefit for subscribers, pointing out the potential cost savings. "That would be a great asset for patients."

For more information about resourceLink, call 358-8531.

In the Know: Telemedicine
Telemedicine is a concept whose time has come, and University of Iowa Health Care is one of the nation’s premiere players in this rapidly expanding health care delivery field. Federal grants supporting the four-year-old project now exceed $14 million.

Shepherding the effort is Michael G. Kienzle, MD, associate dean for Clinical Affairs and Biomedical Communications in the College of Medicine and principal investigator of the National Laboratory for the Study of Rural Telemedicine.

Located in University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, the UI Telemedicine Network serves health care facilities in 16 Iowa communities and nine correctional institutions. Tele-education, Teleradiology, and Internet Medicine are also components of Telemedicine within UI Health Care.

"Telemedicine is medicine without boundaries, based on the principle that the quality of your health care should not be limited by the location of your hometown."

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa