Nadia de la Houssaye, partner at the Jones Walker law firm, joined us to discuss her career journey in law and telemedicine.

Nadia chairs the firm’s telemedicine team and is co-leader of their healthcare litigation team. She works with hospitals, health systems, providers, and start-up companies to structure and integrate telemedicine, telehealth, and digital health platforms.

Her passion for the expansion and growth of telemedicine began in 1997 when she and Dr. Tom Vreeland launched one of Louisiana's first teleradiology networks. At that time, internet access was offered mainly through analog services which were incredibly slow by today's standards; she had to get a high-speed T1 line installed to be able to offer the technology.

Her interest in telemedicine predated teleradiology, and in fact, her fascination with technology began when she was a young girl and watched the Apollo 11 moon landing. And then, she happened to marry a radiologist (Dr. Tom Vreeland) who wanted to start a teleradiology practice. He was the first person she met who also had the same interests as she did.

Nadia recalled how back when Dr. Vreeland worked at UMC (now UHC), "there were boxes and boxes of x-rays sitting at all hospitals, not just UHC. There was a shortage of radiologists, and back then people didn’t read films 24/7. There was no sense of urgency even if the patient being treated had cancer or a stroke. Today, everyone wants things done in “real-time” and people expect quick results from tests. The standard of care has evolved with the evolution of technological advances.

Their teleradiology company, Nighthawk, had offices in Australia and Germany as well as the U. S., all with American trained physicians who were licensed in every state in the U. S. The company could provide 24 hour a day readings with radiologists working throughout different time zones. By the time the company went public in 2004, technology had advanced to where the transmission was almost instantaneous.

Everyone recognized that with technology, better care was becoming available to patients. Nadia believes that Tom Vreeland became a spearhead in the way medicine should be practiced. They were both visionaries in the field.

Technology has outpaced the regulatory climate for telemedicine. Active for the past 28 years in the American Telemedicine Association which has thousands of members, Nadia was one of about 50 original members in the group. Very few people understood what they were trying to accomplish and they were called “dreamers “  The goal was to get telemedicine accepted and thereby get providers fairly reimbursed for services rendered virtually.

Nadia de la Houssaye was an original member of the American Telemedicine Association. She is still active with ATA, whose mission is to work to "advance industry adoption of telehealth and virtual care, promote responsible policy, advocate for government and market normalization, and provide education and resources to help integrate virtual care into emerging value-based delivery models."

With COVID, telemedicine became necessary for the masses and has become much more widely accepted. But even prior to the pandemic, advancements in telehealth, telestroke, teleICU, and telecardiology transformed the ability for rural hospitals to have access to specialists they would not otherwise have.

As an example, rural patients can now get a teleneurologist online with a software app that allows the doctor to treat as if he had the ability to put his hands on the patient. CT scans are taken at the hospital and uploaded to the teleneurologist offsite. Critical time is thereby saved for the patient.