News & Updates

Karen Rheuban

Karen Schulder Rheuban, MD, is a professor of pediatrics and senior associate dean for continuing medical education and external affairs at the University of Virginia. As a pediatric cardiologist, Rheuban provides care to patients with congenital and acquired heart disease.

Rheuban is co-founder and director of the UVA Center for Telehealth, which was renamed the Karen S. Rheuban Center for Telehealth in 2016 in recognition of Rheuban’s significant contributions to the field of telemedicine.

The UVA Office of Telemedicine serves as the hub of a 153-site telemedicine network, funded in part by federal and state grants, grants from the Federal Communications Commission, and corporate and foundation grants. The UVA Office of Telemedicine has supported more than 100,000 patient services in Virginia, and has provided thousands of hours of health professional and patient education. In addition, UVA Telemedicine is engaged global health outreach.

Rheuban’s influence extends well beyond UVA. She is a past president of the American Telemedicine Association, a board member of the Center for Telehealth and e-Health Law, and the board chair of the Virginia Telehealth Network. She is a trustee of the Swinfen Charitable Trust, an international telemedicine charity that connects more than 300 hospitals in developing countries around the world via telemedicine with hundreds of medical specialists, including dozens at UVA. She is also a member of the Virginia Board of Medicine ad-hoc working group on telemedicine.

Rheuban has previously presented congressional testimony regarding telehealth to five committees within the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2010, her efforts led to the passage of a sweeping telemedicine reimbursement bill for telehealth services in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In addition, she worked collaboratively with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner to change CMS regulations regarding the credentialing and privileging of telehealth practitioners and to redefine eligibility parameters for Medicare reimbursement for telehealth services.

Rheuban is the primary investigator on the Health Resources and Services Administration-funded Mid-Atlantic Telehealth Resource Center grant serving eight states and the District of Columbia. This grant was established to help healthcare organizations and providers establish cost-effective telehealth programs to better serve rural and underserved areas.

In 2012, Rheuban chaired the Institute of Medicine Workshop on Telehealth. She was nominated by the Medical Society of Virginia and appointed to serve on the Virginia Board of Medical Assistance Services (Medicaid), which she currently chairs.

A fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Telemedicine Association, Rheuban is listed in the Best Doctors in America database. She also was profiled in the National Library of Medicine’s exhibit Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America’s Women Physicians.

Rheuban received her medical degree from Ohio State University. She completed a pediatric residency and pediatric cardiology fellowship at UVA.

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