(Radio Iowa) – UnityPoint says two of its largest Iowa hospitals will start using telemedicine physicians to help with overnight shifts. Iowa Methodist Medical Center and Iowa Lutheran, both in Des Moines, will use the service between 7 P-M and 7 A-M. Jonathan Senkler, an associate medical director at UnityPoint, says telemedicine doctors will assist with less urgent matters.”What this does is, those calls now go to the telemedicine provider,” Sinkler says. “It unburdens the admitting provider at the hospital to focus more time on doing admissions, which can take a lot of time.” Senkler says using the telemedicine physicians will shift away less pressing concerns so the doctors on-staff can zero in on more serious matters.

“I might not have time to get back to some of these lower urgency things, like a Tylenol, until everything else is resolved,” Senkler says. “So what it does is, this telemedicine provider can offload that and focus just on those things, and so you’re able to respond to things much faster.” The program is being instated as hospitals across Iowa are facing staffing shortages while hospitalizations for respiratory virus infections remain high.

(reporting by Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)