World Telehealth Initiative provides long distance aid to Ukraine

PACIFIC COAST BUSINESS TIMES, Santa Barbara, CA

Article written by Madeleine Benn for the Pacific Coast Business Times:

It has been over a year since Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine and the war is ongoing every day, but so too is the support for the citizens of Ukraine.

Santa Barbara-based World Telehealth Initiative, first established in 2017, was founded as a way for American clinicians to assist physicians and facilities in developing nations across the world.

While the program usually builds a rapport with the designated community before going in, this was not the case for their foray into Ukraine, but their efforts have been needed and have not gone unnoticed.

“We typically weren’t a rapid responder; we generally partner with the Minister of Health or a clinic in places like Haiti and Malawi and we develop those relationships prior to us coming on site. We do community education and similar projects for a kind of extended rollout to make sure the program will be successful and accepted,” Sharon Allen, co-founder and CEO of WTI, told the Business Times. “But in Ukraine, the Ministry of Health actually reached out to us early on and requested support.”

She explained that while Ukraine had attempted telehealth efforts prior to the war, they didn’t take them for one reason or another. But Ukraine knew they needed some assistance in this critical time.

WTI had originally sent eight remote presence devices and with this technology, it’s as if the supporting provider is in the room with the on-site physician.

“It’s fully featured so you can zoom into the surgical field or if the provider on site applies a stethoscope, the supporting physician hears that stethoscope sound in their headphones… So, there are very high-end medical-grade diagnostic pieces of equipment,” said Allen.

With that in mind, WTI sent aid to the Ministry and the Ministry put those machines where they figured they would have the most combat casualties.

“The first thing they asked us to help with was combat-trained trauma surgeons because while they have wonderful physicians in Ukraine, they were starting to see a complexity of injuries that no one usually sees in a typical time,” said Allen.

WTI has also been consulting on a lot of neurosurgery cases lately, such as head injuries and shrapnel wounds.

While Ukraine’s hospital and health infrastructure previously was spread out across the country, with specialty hospitals in different regions, and with the ongoing war making it hard to traverse the country, telehealth has stepped up to bring specialists across the country and across the world together.

WTI was originally thought up by Dr. Yulun Wang, who is now serving as the executive chairman.

Wang was the founder of InTouch Health, now Teladoc Health after being acquired in 2020, the largest supplier of telehealth equipment to hospitals and health systems in the United States. He still serves as a Fellow at Teladoc.

He saw the difference it made in communities that harnessed the telehealth technology, but he worried many people in these communities would never see the benefits.

“But the fact was that the network that enabled this connectivity was already bought and paid for, with hundreds of millions of dollars being put forward and since it already existed, it wouldn’t be incrementally too much more to allow others to access that network,” said Allen.

WTI figured that if they could get the virtual care devices out to the communities that would need it the most, they would just need to partner with philanthropic physicians that would be willing to donate their time and expertise.

“We didn’t know how difficult or easy recruiting the clinicians would be, but we found that they’re innately good people that go into medicine, who want to heal and help,” said Allen. “So, we have actually been overwhelmed by the response from physicians.”

Allen said that WTI has about 50 different specialties and 1000 different providers on its network. They are now in 40 different communities around the world and in 16 different countries.

“It really is a piece of the global healthcare solution,” she said.

WTI works primarily as an international organization as the U.S. tends to have stricter guidelines regarding telehealth and practicing across state lines. And while a lot of those regulations were lifted during the pandemic, as those rules come back into play, WTI recognizes that their mission will continue to be conducted mostly abroad.

“We do think we’ll have a presence in the U.S. at some point, but we actually started as an international venture,” said Allen.

Meanwhile, their experience in Ukraine has helped them figure out how to standardize how WTI is able to do rapid response in the future. As for how an average citizen can help, donations are always appreciated.

“We do need to continue this operation and get those devices where they’re needed,” said Allen.

She is also proud of the work she has been able to do since being at WTI.

Allen noted a particular story of the first patient she ever met. The patient, born in Malawi, suffered from a birth injury called obstetric fistula, which leaves them incontinent and is a spiraling condition.

“Their husbands typically leave them, and they are basically ostracized from life. The lucky ones live in the back corner of a relative’s home. It’s devastating,” Allen said.

The injury doesn’t happen as often in the United States because operations like C-sections are available. Moreover, there exists a procedure to help fix these women.

“Our patient was 19 when I met her and she would have led a life of isolation without the procedure and now, she’s a beautiful young woman with a full life ahead of her,” said Allen. “It’s the patient stories that drive our organization.”