When 40-year-old Wendy McDonald of Beaver suffered a stroke in April, her language comprehension skills took a big hit.

The stroke induced aphasia, a condition in which the left hemisphere of the brain loses its grasp on basic speech and reading abilities. She was treated in Utah Valley Regional Medical Center's intensive care unit and later moved to neurotrauma rehab for speech therapy. She progressed quickly, but looming overhead was the reality of her situation: Once released from the hospital, Wendy would return home and face a six-hour round trip to continue her badly needed therapy sessions three times a week. And since she couldn't drive, her husband, Scott, would need to take time off work to make sure she got there safely.

"We would have to go to St. George or Provo; those are probably the two closest areas," he said. "If I have to drive and blow a whole day, I'm not working."

The record-high gas prices earlier this summer were also a daunting prospect. So Scott, IT director at Beaver Valley Hospital, looked for an alternative.

His facility had used common teleconferencing equipment before to seek specialist input. Once, when a badly burned boy came in, they contacted a doctor at Primary Children's Medical Center for a diagnosis. So he figured: why not his wife?

"We were looking for ways to leverage the technology," he said.

He got in touch with Jim Moss, Wendy's speech therapist at UVRMC, to see if he was game. Moss expressed enthusiasm, but had some reservations about the system, having never used it before. Since the session would be carried over the Internet, he was worried hiccups in service could interrupt the sensitive healing process. Those proved to be unfounded, he said.

"This is a perfect situation," he said. "It doesn't really interfere at all with the effectiveness of treatments."

The biggest challenge to getting the endeavor off the ground was convincing Wendy's insurance to pay for it, Scott said. As a board member of the state's Telehealth Network, coordinated by the University of Utah, he said that's the single biggest hurdle in most cases.

"Insurance fights it because their policies are very old, and they haven't updated those policies by researching the technology," he said. "It takes forever before insurance wants to pay for it. We did work out the details through numerous appeals."

Partially at issue was a provision that the insurance company would cover only "in-person" treatments, Moss said. But working together, he and the McDonalds convinced the company it made sense for everyone involved. It granted Wendy 21 teletherapy sessions -- and so she became the first person in the Beaver hospital's history to receive regular speech therapy from a doctor more than 150 miles away.

Instead of a two-hour drive to Provo, it's 10 minutes from her house. She sits in a comfortable chair in front of a TV and communicates visually with Moss as though they were in the same room. He faxes her any worksheets she'll need a few hours ahead of each session.

"I couldn't have done it from the other place," said Wendy, who is still working on her speech comprehension and writing. "I would have had such a hard time to go that far."

The technology could become increasingly important as physicians realize its potential applications, said Intermountain Healthcare spokeswoman Janet Frank. All but four of Utah's 29 counties are rural or frontier counties and are designated Health Care Professional Shortage Areas by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.

Frank said the network is looking at telehealth as one part of the solution, along with outreach clinics and other electronic means.

"We see that as part of our mission: to be including the service and the access to people that don't have it," she said.

Moss is optimistic insurance companies will eventually catch up with the technology.

"To be reimbursed for telemedicine is kind of a new thing, but it could really help a lot of patients," he said. "Most hospitals probably have a lot of the equipment they would need to do this."

• Ace Stryker can be reached at 344-2556 or astryker@heraldextra.com.