A 2,000 percent spike in requests for virtual visits last month at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford prompted rapid staff training and a deployment of cameras, speakers and microphones to use with an existing Cisco collaboration platform. Strong documentation and flexibility were key, a Lucile Packard leader told HealthTech.
Videoconferencing plays a central role in supporting telehealth programs. Consider the work at OSF HealthCare in Illinois, which is distributing laptops with preloaded mobile health apps to high-risk people and those showing early symptoms of the virus. Recipients communicate twice daily with a nurse by phone or virtual visit.
Telehealth Will Support a Wide Range of Specialty Care
Virtual care offers far more than an initial point of contact. A HealthTech Twitter poll in January found nearly one-third of surveyed organizations use telehealth for chronic disease management (other top uses include follow-up and specialty care).
Take telecardiology, for instance. Forty percent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients have cardiovascular disease, according to the American College of Cardiology, and the comorbidity causes a mortality rate 10 times higher than that of otherwise healthy people diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. Which is why the ability to handle some cardiac care via spoke hospitals or specialty clinics is a valuable defense.