Video to link doctors.Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard When pediatricians at Sacred Heart Medical Center Sacred Heart Medical Center may refer to: In the United States:
The first full-service children's hospital in the Pacific Northwest, Doernbecher provides full-spectrum pediatric care. in Portland is now as easy as turning on a video camera and flat-screen monitor flat-screen monitor n → Flachbildschirm m . Hospital officials say the video consultation will provide immediate expert advice to local pediatricians and parents, and should reduce the number of children who must be taken to Doernbecher by helicopter or ambulance. The pilot project, announced Tuesday, is the first such telemedicine link between between the children's hospital A children's hospital is a hospital which offers its services exclusively to children. The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties. at Oregon Health & Science University and any of the state's hospitals. About 30 children are transported each year from Sacred Heart to Doernbecher. Of those, about 25 to 30 percent wind up not being admitted to the pediatric pediatric /pe·di·at·ric/ (pe?de-at´rik) pertaining to the health of children. pe·di·at·ric adj. Of or relating to pediatrics. intensive care unit at Doernbecher, indicating that they probably didn't need to be transferred, said Dr. Tom Roe, a retired Eugene pediatrician who helped put the pilot project together. Sacred Heart has a neonatal intensive care unit Noun 1. neonatal intensive care unit - an intensive care unit designed with special equipment to care for premature or seriously ill newborn NICU ICU, intensive care unit - a hospital unit staffed and equipped to provide intensive care for the care of newborns, but doesn't have the volume to support a pediatric ICU ICU intensive care unit. ICU abbr. intensive care unit ICU see intensive care unit. ICU . Pediatricians said they would consult with the specialists at Doernbecher's pediatric intensive care unit to determine whether a child needs a higher level of care, for example, for a head injury suffered in a car accident, or for a case of meningitis, a disease that can progress rapidly and be fatal. On the other end of the line will be pediatric intensivists who will be able to conduct a virtual physical examination of a sick or injured child, and check vital signs, labs and x-rays. "They're a good judge of whether we can take care of it down here," Roe said. A video examination isn't as good as being there in person, but provides far more information than a consultation conducted over the telephone, said Dr. Miles Ellenby, a pediatric intensivist at Doernbecher. "It's just more information that we can use to make decisions in the first critical hours," he said. "If a picture is worth a thousand words A picture is worth a thousand words is a proverb that refers to the idea that complex stories can be told with just a single still image, or that an image may be more influential than a substantial amount of text. , then live interactive video is truly priceless." The consultations should save parents and insurance companies thousands of dollars by averting unnecessary transfers, Roe said. Under the agreement between Sacred Heart and Doernbecher, each hospital paid for its own video equipment, which for Sacred Heart was about $15,000. Doernbecher doctors agreed to charge no fee for its first 30 consultations, Roe said. OHSU OHSU Oregon Health & Science University (Portland, OR, USA) is backing legislation, Senate Bill 519, that would require health insurers to cover telemedicine consultations. OHSU officials eventually would like to provide telemedicine consultations to hospitals and doctors around the state, Ellenby said. The service would be particularly valuable for rural doctors who aren't used to seeing a lot of intensely sick kids, he said. Sacred Heart officials also foresee a wider use of the technology. For example, telemedicine would help emergency room physicians decide whether patients need to be transferred to a Portland hospital. When Sacred Heart is operating two campuses, at RiverBend and at the University District, doctors at one campus could consult with those on the other by video conference. Other health care providers - nurses and pharmacists, for example - also can use the technology, Roe said. "This is going to be an extender See Media Center Extender, bus extender and DOS extender. of health care," he said. |
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