It’s not just big hospitals and health systems giving patients the option to see a doctor online for a minor medical condition.

York Hospital, a 79-bed facility nestled on the southern coast of Maine in York, is offering a telehealth program in an effort to retain patients—who have the option of getting care 75 miles away in Boston, home to some of the nation’s most prestigious hospitals and an advanced digital healthcare hub.

York Hospital introduced a consumer telehealth program in January after about a year of developing and testing the program internally. Results have been modest—only about 20 patients have scheduled and conducted a digital doctor visit through mid-December.

But York Hospital believes the numbers will grow, particularly as the hospital ramps up marketing programs in 2018. It also will consider promoting usage in other ways, such as by promoting its telehealth program in its five walk-in clinics, working with various regional health insurance carriers on awareness campaigns and possibly reducing the current $49 fee consumers pay to see the doctor online.

The primary reason York is offering telehealth visits is as an option for patients that want to keep their healthcare local. “Not every patient wants to see a provider they don’t know from a big national network,” says York Hospital director, walk-in services Erich Fogg. “They want to be seen by a provider that’s local and they know.” Some patients choose to come in for an office visit the same day after first engaging a doctor via the telehealth program, and operating its own program makes it possible for a patient to see the same doctor he spoke to online.

Patients can make the drive to Boston for care at some of the country’s biggest and best known hospital systems and medical institutions including Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Each of those institutions also offer some form of consumer telehealth.

But York Hospital’s focus is only providing local care, and the hospital sees and wants to grow telehealth as a means to offer patients treatment that’s close by, if that’s their choice. “Telehealth helps us retain patients and keep more services local,” says York Hospital director of teleservices Gerard Dubois.

York Hospital has four clinicians from it walk-in facilities on call for a telehealth visit. For now the telehealth hours to treat walk-in types of problems such as colds and the flu are available from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Operating hours are limited in part because of the hours local pharmacies are open. “Our local pharmacies are only open until 7 p.m.,” Fogg says.

Most of the outpatient telehealth cases York Hospital clinicians have seen so far have been for ailments such as the cold and flu. York has a longer history of providing inside-the-hospital patient telehealth services such as for stroke, pulmonology and neurology consults, in conjunction with other health systems, such as Massachusetts General Hospital,

Next year the hospital is planning to expand its consumer services. Plans are in the works, for example, to work with local schools on implementing telehealth. The expansion of consumer telehealth also includes adding services for behavioral health digital office visits.

By some hospital market standards, York Hospital, which uses technology from Glendale, Calif., telehealth services provider SnapMD Inc., may seem slow in rolling out digital doctor visits. But York Hospital is pleased with its progress so far and in offering its patients newer digital tools that make it convenient to obtain care locally. “We saw telehealth coming down the pike we needed to do it,” Fogg says. “This is the future of healthcare delivery and we wanted use it in a way to better serve our local community.”

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