At Children’s Hospital Boston, several telemedicine pilots are currently underway to determine their viability, including VGo Robotic Telepresence System - which is so popular, that patients don't want to part with it

July 17, 2012 by Arundhati Parmar, MedCityNews

Cheap communications technologies have brought more muscle to the field of telemedicine, and organizations are looking to leverage these tools in innovative ways to provide care to patients at a distance.

At Children’s Hospital Boston, several telemedicine pilots are currently underway to determine their viability. At the MedCity CONVERGE Conference last week in Philadelphia, Naomi Fried, chief innovation officer of the hospital, provided a brief overview of three promising pilots.

VGo Robot

These communications robots go home with the child who has undergone urological surgery at Children’s and remain for a two-week period. The video conferencing robot allows physicians to be able to see the patient at home with the parent and communicate with them.

The program has been so successful that patients have a hard time letting go of the sleek, shapely communications robot at the end of the two weeks.

“They don’t want to give the robot up and they really feel connected to the physician (through it),” Fried said.

Currently there are 5 VGo robots that are getting circulated around.

“What’s exciting about the pediatric patient population is that they are so open to technology,” Fried said. “They are digital natives and they are not intimidated by it.”

The other two pilots are Physician-Physician Virtual Consultation in dermatology and ER physician-to-ICU physician connection.  All three pilots have been ongoing for a few months and the goal is to collect data.

“Telemedicine is a strategic health initiative at Children’s Hospital Boston,” Fried said, noting that it represents a “paradigm shift” in healthcare delivery.

To read the full article, click here.