Connected Health Care for the Klamath Basin

Sky Lakes is the only hospital in the Klamath Basin and the primary hospital for 10,000 square miles of Oregon and California. Sky Lakes performs everything from major surgeries to regular checkups. With 1,200 employees, they’re also the largest non-governmental employer in the area. As a not-for-profit organization, they’re owned by the community and governed by a board of volunteers.

Technology is the backbone, so to speak, of Sky Lakes’ operations. From the big things — they have a robot that aids doctors in stroke management — to the everyday things like sharing CT scans back and forth between experts, Sky Lakes requires the best technology and internet services available.

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“Telehealth and Epic Software allow our staff to do their jobs,” says Alan Irvine, IT Operations Manager for Sky Lakes Medical Center. “Then our Cal-Ore connections allow it all to work, connecting our offices with providers, patients and the internet.”

Irvine admits that many of the patients and doctors who use the technology probably don’t know how it works. They just know it works.

On any given day, Sky Lakes might have all 1,200 employees and all their doctors online, plus all of their patients on the guest wi-fi network. That takes big bandwidth and solid reliability. Sky Lakes counts on the Internet to connect all their operations, from community resources to billing to patient information. Today the organization even uses their internet service to “beam in” neuro-specialists to assess potential stroke victims.

“[Internet access is] a great enabler and it allows us to leverage technology so we can do what we do better, faster and benefiting more people.”