HCA Midwest Health, Kansas City's premier healthcare provider and award-winning leader in stroke care, recently announced that Angie Lucchi has been named Vice President of Communications and Telemedicine.
In this role, Lucchi will continue to develop strategy and strategic initiatives for HCA Midwest Health's robust outreach and telemedicine initiatives, connecting rural healthcare partners with better and more immediate access to specialty care. The HCA Midwest Health TeleStroke Network represents HCA Midwest Health partner hospitals, including Research Medical Center, Overland Park Regional Medical Center and Centerpoint Medical Center. Through awards and accreditations such as Research's Comprehensive Stroke Center, as well as Certified Primary Stroke Center designation sites, these hospitals have specialized resources, including board-certified neurologists, neuroradiologists, and surgeons, and are dedicated to best practices that deliver the highest quality and early stroke treatment.
Lucchi, who began her career with HCA Midwest Health as AVP of Outreach and Telemedicine in 2016 in HCA Midwest Health's division office. During this time, her focused efforts helped HCA Midwest Health experience tremendous growth in outreach, creating new relationships with rural markets in Kansas and Missouri and HCA Midwest Health hospitals in Louisiana and Mississippi. Lucchi was responsible for the creation and implementation of the HCA Midwest Health Outreach and Virtual Network, which consists of 46 virtual network locations in Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Mississippi, including four current lines of telemedicine services with more planned to launch in 2018 and beyond. .
In the past nine months alone, Lucchi has helped add 17 new telemedicine and outreach sites as part of the network, allowing partner hospitals 24-hour, on-call access to leading stroke, neuroscience and other specialties. In addition, he implemented core service lines, such as oncology and neurology, in outpatient clinics to allow patients to remain in their community and receive advice from specialists at the Sarah Cannon Cancer Centers and board-certified neurologists.
“Angie's leadership, in collaboration with Department and hospital leadership, has been instrumental in building our outreach program,” says HCA Midwest Health President ML Lagarde III. “Our Virtual Health Network, where physicians in rural hospitals can communicate via a two-way live video, audio and image sharing system with stroke neurologists and specialists from their respective HCA Midwest Health partner hospital, is helping to pave the way for life-saving patient care to our important community partners.”
“The technology and expertise provided by HCA Midwest Health's Virtual Health Network helps patients in rural communities receive care much faster and ensures a seamless transfer for high-acuity stroke, brain injury care and other critical diagnoses,” says Lucchi. “These partnerships have enabled our valued experts to assess a patient in real-time for stroke diagnosis and other critical assessments. Consulting specialists work with local physicians and staff to determine the best treatment options. The ultimate goal of the program is to keep more patients, if possible, in their local facilities to receive care with Virtual Health's specialists and their care team at the service center.”
For more information about HCA Midwest Health, visit https://hcamidwest.com/home/.
