Ready to see your doctor online? Mount St. Mary's is ready

Remember when you thought Christmas photos (and Facebook) might encourage your grandmother to become comfortable with the internet? Didn't work, did it?

Judith Maness might finally have found the motivation to get seniors to become one with their iMacs.

Maness, the CEO of Mount St. Mary's Hospital in Lewiston, was one in a list of speakers extolling the virtues of Online Care, a new feature the hospital has recently launched that will allow doctors and patients to interact online, saving time in the waiting or emergency rooms. Local news media were given a demonstration of the feature with Dr. Philip Sauvageau (shown above with Maness), who logged on from a different site in the hospital and was broadcast to the group.

Maness said she's curious to find out what demographic will use the feature most — elders who might demand more care, or more tech-savvy Generation X-ers who don't want to wait.

"The potential is that a younger group will use it, but maybe not. That's something we want to see," Maness said. "For the ones who are interested, we'll walk them through it and show them how easy it is to use. Some won't, but many will. I know plenty of people who've retired and have learned how to use their computer because they have time."

Click on this link to take a tour of the new service.

Mount St. Mary's is among the first hospitals in the nation to provide such a service, through its membership in Ascension Health.

Maness said she's happy to be on the cutting edge of technology, but not for competition's sake.

"I'm proud of this hospital, and our efforts to reach out to patients in new ways," Maness said. "That's what I'm really proud of. It's nice to be first, but it's more important to find out if it will be accepted by the patients as an great extension of their physician and if they're able to maintain that intimate relationship in a new way."

According to a handout, the price for visits will be $45 or less, and the hours are flexible — doctors should be on hand to answer questions from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the work week, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdey and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. However, insurance plans do not currently cover the fee.