Mobile Telemedicine Helps Patients In Transit

Telemedicine gear often helps patients and clinicians connect with remote physicians, but for the most part, those interactions typically take place from "fixed" locations, such as a home or office within another medical facility. However, a new telemedicine configuration developed with clinicians from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is linking patients in ambulances with remote medical specialists. "This is telemedicine on-the-go," said Dr. Hamilton Schwartz, who came up with an idea for using high-resolution video and other telemedicine gear, such as digital stethoscopes, for pediatric patients -- including sick premature infants -- while these children are in transit to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) from other area hospitals. In pediatric healthcare, especially cases involving critically ill children, care often needs to be delivered while the patient is being moved from one facility to another. But emergency or intensive care specialists at the destination hospital can get a head start in delivering care to those sick patient if the clinicians can remotely examine and observe the patient prior and during to transit, said Schwartz.