Finkelstein Receives 2023 Dr. James Bush Award for Excellence in Telehealth

The Wyoming Telehealth Consortium has named Dr. Lisa Finkelstein, medical director of telehealth at St. John’s Health in Jackson, as the recipient of the 2023 Dr. James Bush Award for Excellence in Telehealth.

The annual award, established in 2022, recognizes telehealth champions for their leadership and contributions to advancing health access through the promotion and/or practice of telehealth in Wyoming. This award is a testament to Finkelstein’s dedication to advancing health care accessibility and quality through telemedicine, the organization says.

The Wyoming Telehealth Consortium is a statewide collaboration supported by the Office of Rural Health and chaired by the current director of Wyoming Medicaid, Dr. Paul Johnson. The group includes the Wyoming Medical Society; the Wyoming Hospital Association; multiple Wyoming hospitals; individual health care professionals and providers; federally qualified health centers; Wyoming chapters of AARP, the Alzheimer’s Association and the Multiple Sclerosis Society; Mountain Pacific Quality Health; and the University of Wyoming’s College of Health Sciences and Wyoming Institute for Disabilities.

Finkelstein was honored for her unwavering commitment to providing high-quality telehealth services to patients and clients, particularly during the pandemic.

Before her role as medical director of telehealth at St. John’s Health, Finkelstein practiced urology for over 20 years. She received nominations from four different agencies and statewide telehealth champions, all attesting to her commitment to telehealth. Nominators noted that her leadership and advocacy in this area started well before 2020, leading the charge at local, state and federal levels.

“There is not a better champion of telehealth than Dr. Finkelstein,” one nominator wrote. “Lisa has put heart and soul into spreading the message. She does it with such intention, thoughtfulness and creativity. It shows through her leadership research and advocacy at all levels.”

“I am honored to receive this award,” Finkelstein says. “We have been advocating for telehealth for many years, and now the wheels are moving forward. Telehealth has indeed become an integral part of health care delivery in our rural state of Wyoming, offering numerous benefits to both patients and health care providers. It’s clear that telehealth is here to stay, and it has the potential to continue evolving and improving health care delivery.”

The award’s namesake, Dr. James Bush, was the Wyoming Department of Health Medicaid and medical director and a tireless advocate for expanding health care in Wyoming through telehealth. Before his retirement in 2022, Bush spent over 16 years leading the effort to expand telehealth services in Wyoming and served as the Wyoming Telehealth Consortium’s first chairperson.

The consortium is committed to promoting telehealth to address many of the rural health care challenges faced across the state by building a sustainable infrastructure to increase access to, and implementation of, telehealth health services across Wyoming.

For more information, visit www.wyomingtelehealth.org.