Telehealth specialty services continue to increase in pediatrics, especially in neurology, psychiatry, cardiology, neonatology and critical care, according to a 2018 report by SPROUT (Supporting Pediatric Research on Outcomes and Utilization of Telehealth), a telehealth research network. Some health systems are expanding the types of telehealth services they offer. For instance, in a January 2019 story on its website, Stanford Children’s Health described its plans to more than double its number of telehealth appointments — from 1,100 visits in 2018 to 2,500 visits in 2019.
Until this year, Stanford Children’s telehealth visits have largely been offered to patients for follow-up appointments. The report noted that some of those are clinic-to-clinic visits, in which a nurse practitioner at a primary-care office connects with a physician at a specialty clinic. The nurse practitioner at the remote clinic examines the child while a high-resolution camera and microphone let the physician at the specialty clinic see and hear exactly what the nurse practitioner does.
Through the Stanford Children’s Health MyChart patient portal, patients and families can connect with their physicians remotely using phones and tablets. Vandna Mittal, director of digital health services at Stanford Children’s Health, is quoted as saying such virtual visits are popular among teen behavioral health patients who go away to college but want to maintain a close relationship with their mental health provider at Stanford.
Stanford Children’s Health also offers clinic-to-school visits, in which physicians can connect remotely with a patient in a school nurse’s office. For instance, a physician caring for a child with Type 1 diabetes can communicate directly with the school nurse and the patient’s parent through a telehealth visit at the nurse’s office, minimizing the need for the parents and the child to travel to the doctor’s office and enabling the doctor and the school nurse to interact.
Telehealth is also being used within Packard Children’s Hospital. From inpatient units, on-call doctors are evaluating patients in the emergency department via telehealth before they are admitted; in some cases, specialists are able to advise ED care teams on the most appropriate transfer methods for patients, according to the Stanford Children’s report.
In November 2018, Stanford Children’s Health launched a new service in conjunction with Stanford Health Care that offers digital second opinion consultations from Stanford physicians. Through the program, called Grand Rounds, patients don’t have to visit the hospitals or clinics for this service. Rather, people can create an account through the Stanford Children’s website and pay a $700 fee; Stanford will collect all of their medical records for them (if the records are in the United States). An expert from Stanford will then review the medical information and send a written second opinion, usually within two weeks.
