MidMichigan Health, the Midland-based owner of the Alpena hospital, recently announced its health care system has surpassed 100,000 virtual health care visits.

The group was headed down that path long before the coronavirus pandemic pushed more and more routine business online.

Because many of its hospitals are in rural areas, where it is often not cost-effective to keep certain specialists on-staff, MidMichigan in 2016 started offering videoconferenced appointments between patients and medical experts such as neurologists.

That allows patients to have conversations and, with the help of nurses in the room, basic exams with the kinds of doctors trained to treat their specific ailments without costly and time-consuming drives to bigger hospitals downstate.

That helps the patient, helps the hospital, and helps the community.

Good work, MidMichigan. Keep it up.

(THE ALPENA NEWS)