TELE-INFECTIOUS DISEASE:
‘I Couldn’t Do This Without Telemedicine’
Steve McCrosky is a family nurse practitioner with 200 patients scattered across more than 60,000 square
miles in northern Arizona. With his employer, North Country HealthCare, he created a program for patients
with HIV and AIDS. Because North Country is on the Arizona Telemedicine Program telecommunications
network, Mr. McCrosky can see patients via telemedicine or face to face, as often as they need to see him.
S
teve McCrosky was 16 when the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention issued its first report of men
dying from diseases that very few people
had ever heard of. He graduated from
high school in 1983, when the collection
of illnesses had been named for human
immunodeficiency virus, or HIV – the
cause of acquired immune deficiency
syndrome, also known as AIDS.
Mr. McCrosky was captivated by the
medical and social implications of the
growing epidemic. After high school, he
enrolled at Northeastern University in
Boston, where he received his nursing
degree. In 1994, he headed west to San
Francisco, where he witnessed the AIDS
epidemic up close. He realized then that
he wanted to be on the front lines of this
unprecedented pandemic. In 2001, at the
University of California, San Francisco, he
completed training to be a family nurse
practitioner.
A few years ago, Mr. McCrosky was living
in Flagstaff and practicing family medicine
in Winslow, Arizona, which borders
on the Hopi and Navajo reservations.
He asked his employer, North Country
HealthCare – a Federally Qualified Health
Center with clinics in Flagstaff and 13
other communities – if he could develop
a program specifically for patients with
HIV and AIDS. He wanted to divide his
practice between telemedicine and inperson patient visits. North Country readily
agreed.
His practice is now devoted to about 200
patients with HIV and AIDS. About half
his time is spent seeing patients either in
8
North Country’s Flagstaff clinic or through
its telemedicine connections. The other
half of his time, he’s traveling to one or
more of the North Country clinics located
within the 60,000 square miles that
make up northern Arizona – to places
like Bullhead City on the western edge
of Arizona and Show Low, 100 miles this
side of New Mexico.
“Yes, telemedicine did
feel weird at first. But it
works. You get used to
it. I think it’s the wave of
the future.”
Patient
Every Wednesday, he drives south to
Prescott, where he is medical director for
Northland Cares, a non-profit HIV-AIDS
support organization.
“I couldn’t do this without telemedicine,”
Mr. McCrosky says.
Nor could his patients. Christopher
Estudillo, a member of the Laguna tribe
of western New Mexico, lives in Winslow.
He walks six blocks from his house to the
Winslow clinic, where he can have a virtual
visit with Mr. McCrosky, or a face-to-face
visit on the two days a year Mr. McCrosky
visits the clinic. Mr. Estudillo’s other option
is driving 60 miles to Flagstaff.
Another of Mr. McCrosky’s patients, who
wants to be anonymous, was infected
with HIV from a transfusion almost 30
years ago.
“Yes, it (telemedicine) did feel weird at
first, like talking to a TV,” she says. “But
it works. You get used to it. And it’s good
for Steve to not have to drive all the way
over here. I think telemedicine will become
even more popular than it is now. I think
it’s the wave of the future.”
She sees Mr. McCrosky every three
months, more often if needed, either by
telemedicine or in person at the North
Country clinic in her hometown. She says
two things keep her going: her strong
faith, and Steve McCrosky.
“Steve is very upbeat,” she
says. “He always has
good things to say to
me. He brings out the
good in me.”