Telemedicine
"Building a better mousetrap," was the goal of pediatric cardiologist Catherine Webb, MD, and her colleagues when they started a telemedicine program at Children's Memorial Hospital some years ago. They wanted to find a way to capture, identify and treat infants with suspected congenital heart disorders that would reduce the need for specialists to travel to outlying hospitals or to transport patients unnecessarily.
Long-distance diagnosis
In 1993, they built their mousetrap by connecting computers to diagnostic equipment using ISDN phone lines and establishing linkage agreements with six area hospitals. Today, Children's Memorial diagnoses approximately 1,000 patients a year through telemedicine. This technology allows pediatric cardiology specialists at Children's Memorial to do real-time echocardiograms and consultations for patients at remote hospitals without specialists on staff.
"Within minutes, we can diagnose a patient and definitively determine whether he or she needs more specialized care," says Webb.
Less expense and less risk
Additionally, telemedicine can reduce costs by eliminating the need for transport and more invasive procedures when specialists can definitively rule out serious heart disease. Transporting newborn patients is not only costly, but it can also be risky and temporarily separates new parents from their infants at a critical family moment.
Importantly, diagnosis and treatment of serious heart disease such as "blue baby syndrome" or shock, which are beyond the expertise of general pediatricians, also occur more quickly using telemedicine, even when those babies are long distances from a pediatric cardiac center.
Amy Davidson of Southlake, Texas, credits Children's Memorial's telemedicine program with the speedy diagnosis and treatment of her son, Matthew. When he was born with a heart murmur at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, an echocardiogram was performed in the nursery and sent to Children's Memorial using telemedicine. It confirmed that Matthew had pulmonary stenosis, a condition requiring open-heart surgery.
Great peace of mind
"It was like having a cardiologist in the room," says Davidson about the telemedicine diagnosis. Within hours, Matthew was transported to Children's Memorial for surgery. "As a parent, it gives you great peace of mind to have doctors who know exactly what they are doing."