PA Docs Use Web to Help Tiny Patients Miles Away

This article describes the ability of a physician in Pennsylvania, United States (US), to monitor the health of infants in intensive care in Cali, Colombia. Wearing a headset and looking at his laptop screen, the chief of cardiac intensive care at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Dr. Ricardo Munoz, can check on paediatric heart patients weekly at Fundacion Valle el Lili hospital in Cali, Colombia. The pilot programme, started in early 2010, is a way to share the expertise of paediatric specialists with physicians and patients in hospitals all over the world.

Dr. Munoz, a native of Colombia, had visited the 700-bed adult and paediatric hospital, worked with doctors there, and consulted from a distance. He was previously not able to see the patients or their monitors, so the hospital explored a technological solution and started their pilot telemedicine programme. For a cost of US$15,000, they installed a system similar to a teleconference: A camera on Munoz's laptop beams his picture to a monitor attached to a wireless cart at the hospital in Cali, and doctors there can wheel it from room to room. Microphones allow Munoz to talk to the doctors and patient's family, and he can control a camera on the cart that can zoom in to give him a better look at whatever he wants. He can then give physicians in Colombia his opinion.

According to this article, the telemedicine option is expanding internationally and within the US. It is used in rural states like Alaska, Hawaii, and Wyoming. "Internationally, there are about 100 hospitals that use telemedicine to link to other countries and that number is growing, said Jonathan Linkous, chief executive officer of the American Telemedicine Association. Such programs can present barriers - language, culture, liability - but those issues can be overcome, he said." Dr. Munoz reiterated the importance of physicians speaking the same language. He also is able to bring some of his colleagues to his hospital for training and continuing education. The Cali hospital's mortality rate in the paediatric critical care unit dropped from about 18 percent to 6 percent from when the programme started in January until the article's publication. The Pittsburgh hospital hopes to expand its telemedicine relationships into in Brazil, India, and Qatar.