In order to better care for critically ill and damaged babies, Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital has introduced a new telemedicine service to expand the services offered by its neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) neurology program to other hospital locations.
The preliminary years of an adolescents development are critical for their future cognition and overall health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This is largely because the brain is expands consistently at this time, and while the brain continues to develop up to adulthood, the early years are most important in facilitating future success in health and general life.
As a result, Intermountain increased the span of its NICU neurology program to improve access to neurology treatment and provide new-borns with brain malformations or at risk of developing them with the chance to get more specialized care. Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital neurologists will remotely watch infants while suggesting therapies for caregivers in four Level III NICUs from regions such as Utah, Montana, and Billings with an extension of its neuro NICU service using remote services. Clinical staff will be able to keep infants closer to their homes and lessen the need for urgent transportation, potentially cutting expenditures. Additionally, neurologists can monitor infants’ seizures continuously thanks to the neuro NICU’s remote EEG technology, which is identical to the treatment given to new-borns at Primary Children’s Hospital. This level of monitoring is a novel development in Utah as part of Intermountain telehealth services and the telehealth service has other advantages, included improved levels of caregiver abilities due to more experience.
Dr. Betsy Ostrander, a pediatric neurologist with the University of Utah Health and Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, stated, “The Neuro NICU telehealth service allows caregivers at other hospitals to quickly contact neurologists at Primary Children’s when they have questions about the infant’s well-being.
According to the doctor, the program enables healthcare professionals to share brain imaging and other evaluations to facilitate discussion and instructs local medical teams on a number of advantageous techniques. As babies are discharged from the NICU, Ostrander added that Primary Children’s hopes to expand the initiative to enable telehealth visits with families
“Doctors and nurses in NICUs already have a high level of skill because of the complex nature of the babies they treat, and this is another way to expand on what they already know,” Ostrander also commented.
