The First Telepedriathies In The World

The first telepedriathies in the world

Justification

This work pursues the purpose of exploring the field of telepediatry worldwide. The reason we have chosen this field for our analysis is because we think that the implementation of telemedicine in this sector is very useful, since children require constant and very controlled attention in regard to their health anddevelopment, and the use of distance services can save us a lot of time and money.

Currently in schools, where telepediatry is not implemented, every day they get bad children, without having enough resources to be able to attend them there, a problem that affects both children, school, and parents who on numerous occasions have toLeave the job to look for your children to the school. With telepediatry there will continue to be a school-power-like feedback on the health of children, but without the need to transfer them to the doctor immediately.

Objectives

• Reflect on the importance of telemedicine in the field of pediatrics and education.
• Know what telepediatry is and what are its advantages.
• Identify a telepediatry model applied in Spain.
• Publicize future expectations about telepediatry.

What is telemedicine?

Telemedicine can be defined as the exchange of medical information that occurs through or through electronic communications in order to improve the health status of an individual.

In general, the character of telemedicine is clinical (diagnosis, treatment, supervision, second opinion consultation etc.

), being able to apply in any branch of medicine. Telemedicine also exists in other areas such as education, training, research and health services management.

Among the potential benefits of telemedicine, the following can be given:

• Greater accessibility to health services
• Increase in the quality of benefits
• Reduction of patient transfers
• Optimization of primary care systems
• To successfully implement a telemedicine program, it can be helpful to take into account the following recommendations:
• Clear definition of domain, functionality, applications and technology to be used
• Availability of an integrated electronic medical history that centralizes all patient information
• Professionals training
• Sustainability and profitability

What is telepediatry?

Telepediatry is the provision of distance pediatrics services, either through videoconference or any system provided on the Internet. As a consequence of the great boom of ICT, the health sector, and specifically that of pediatrics that is what we are going to deal with, has decided to incorporate new technologies in the field of work, thus adapting to the new needs of patients.

This, begins to be increasingly demanded by the parents and caregivers of children who need some health service, either at their home, nursery or children. Telepediatria has revolutionized the world, since thanks to it we can get in touch with a pediatrician or a distance pediatrician. Specialized care services are usually limited to the main hospitals in metropolitan areas, so patients in rural areas often have to travel long distances to be treated by a specialist. The use of telepediatria could avoid stress and discomfort of having to move anywhere, in addition to reducing the time that parents have to miss the work and expense that this is.

Advantages of Telepediatry

• Time savings: One of the advantages is time savings. The fact of not having to make an appointment, move to the Early Care Center, wait etc. And to be able to do a management when it is needed from where it is is a great advantage, together with the individualization capacity offered.
• Easy access: parents, can access the service through your smartphone, tablet, or computer and receive the service you need. Simply accessing from the Internet and without moving from the site, which is an improvement in quality in care being more connected to health centers and pediatricians.
• Immediate Solutions: Today some schools or nurseries already use online platforms through which you can contact a pediatrician or a pediatrician when a situation that requires the intervention of this professional requires.
• Medical Professional: Professionals participating in these platforms are medical and healthcare of environments and communication between doctor and patient transferred to new less traditional tools.
• Simple consultations: In integral telepediatry platforms, only the creation of a profile on its platform is needed, and the subsequent selection of a pediatrician, with national coverage and including other specialists. Once you have it assigned you receive a weekly monitoring of the baby, online consultations through WhatsApp, Message, Facebook and Health Councils, all this in a very safe way.

The beginnings of telepediatry

The University of California, Davis (UC Davis), began offering telemedicine services to pediatric patients in 2000, due to the detection of an urgent need to improve the emergency service in remote places. In the initial phases, the main objective was to reduce the disparity between the quality of care offered in rural areas compared to that offered near urban centers, where specialized quality care is more available.

The Davis hospital began to provide telemédica links to certain Rural areas of California for children who were in critical condition and required Entry to Emergency Services and Intensive Care. In this way, your health status could be stabilized in the remote center, and then transferred to the closest specialized pediatrics center. The Davis hospital offers a videoconference service, so that the specialists of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit can help with the evaluation, supervision and planning of the child’s treatment while stabilized and organized transportation.

Initially, the high cost of the material was a great obstacle, since rural suppliers did not have sufficient economic level to acquire it. However, subsidy funds supported the initial and maintenance of the equipment in the first eight places of action.

Telepediatria in Spain

According to the data provided by Kidscare, the leading company in the provision of medical services in schools in Spain, telepediatry helps to solve an average of 80% of consultations. In this way, it can prevent up to 3.6 million visits per year for emergency services and primary care, saving up to 187 million euros per year for the National Health System.

Kidscare

Kidscare is a telepediatry system that, through the use of different technologies, offers medical care in schools during the school day. Attends consultations related to physical, psychological and nutrition health. At any time of this schedule, teachers can request a teleconsultation with a specialist doctor to carry out an evaluation of the child through the kit that the centers that have this service must have installed and solve any questions . This query can be done through a chat, an email or simply a call. The specialized kit is composed of:

• A computer that has incorporated the telepediatry platform
• A high -definition exploration chamber that allows the doctor to make an assessment of the skin, eyes, ears and mouth
• A digital phoneoscope to be able to auscultate and detect any respiratory, abdominal or cardiac anomaly.
• A pulseioximetro to measure the level of oxygen in the blood and detect if there is any respiratory irregularity.

Once the diagnosis is made, this is shared with the parents together with the necessary treatment. One of the many advantages of this system is that it offers the possibility of involving school, parents and the doctor itself in the child’s health and welfare.

In addition to the medical consultations made through the Kidscare, this provides a “recommendations program” which is responsible for providing information through professionals, about pediatrics, psychology and nutrition;and a “parents’ school”, in charge of offering a portfolio of training seminars, and online talks aimed at both the teachers and the parents.

This telepediatry service has been carried out by the Anatari Primary Care Telemedicine platform, this being a product that allows remote diagnoses and sharing clinical information, through the electronic medical module. It is based on the possibility that a healthcare can plan appointments and carry them out with the different specialists, thus providing quality services, avoiding transfers that are not necessary.

The use of telepediatria in developing countries

Many people from developing countries suffer from limited medical resources and inappropriate health services, especially in more remote areas and communities. Therefore, the use of telemedicine, and in this case that of telepediatry, it could be much more significant in these developing countries than in the most advanced countries, where medical resources are already abundant and access to high specialized servicesquality is more feasible.

The current preference is to take out those pathologies that require more attention from hospitals. It is necessary to have some controlled pathologies such as cardiac, asthmatic, dermatological and for this the telemedicine instrument is proposed. It is possible to move the place of intervention to the Primary Care Center and from there to the patient’s home.

In the case of rural medicine and difficult to access the patient, the usefulness of telemedicine is clearly shown. Pilot projects in telepediatry are being carried out in almost all subspecialties. In the US.UU. Pediatric services are being developed to address rural areas with low population density.

Children’s Medical Services (CMS) of the State of Georgia has hired with The Department of Pediatrics of the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) and the MCG Telemedicine Center the development of telemedicine programs to provide pediatric care to children with special health needs.

An action protocol has been developed for each pediatric subspecialty, which allows both nursing staff or children’s caregivers to proceed to meet the diagnostic needs.

Telepediatry system

Through communications systems adapted to the information transmission needs to be provided with a PC, quality cameras and specific medical instruments of the pathologies to be treated, correct diagnoses can be guaranteed and, of course, the necessary care.

The instruments to be used are varied, for example, electronic stethoscopes, capable of transmitting heart and lung sounds, where a doctor on the other side analyzes it. The background is transmitted by the nurse or caregiver, leaving a record in the database. The sounds transmitted by the stethoscope are similar to those obtained by listening directly to the patient and allow diagnoses of pneumonia, spill, heart blows etc.

Also, it is possible to have a dermatoscopy chamber, which sends high -definition images to be evaluated at a distance by dermatologists specialists, allowing the follow -up of suspicious lesions or the derivation if necessary.

Another of the units is an electrocardiograph that can be connected through a network to the Telecardiology Diagnostic Unit. The action can be synchronous, since it starts from a videoconference application, or asynchronous given the patient’s needs and service availability. In this case, specialists would speak with the patient or caregivers.

Another tool would be an otoscope and a dentaloscope, through which they can perform remote precision diagnoses.

Finally, sphigmomanometer equipment electronically allow us to transmit blood pressure information. The pediatric subspecialties that these applications can use are very numerous, and the only limitations that can be given are from specialists and their adaptation to telemedicine. For the specific problem of medical care, these applications can be adapted to the homes of patients, transferring the clinical center to the patient’s home.