Covid-19 Created Telehealth Enabled Critical Care for Newborns

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March 2020, the government immediately enforced a stay-at-home order. Even as civilization came to a halt, one thing remained constant: babies were still being born and needed to be Care for. The limits resulted in a sharp reduction in neonatologists’ availability in Liverpool, England.

Dr. Christopher Dewhurst, the clinical director for the Family Health Division at Liverpool Women’s Hospital and the Liverpool Neonatal Partnership, said, “There were beginning to be discussions about transferring neonatal surgical services to other centers. Our neonatal service would not have survived in its current state without telemedicine.”

Dewhurst, who will present at HIMSS21 alongside Beth Kreofsky, operations manager of the Mayo Clinic’s Teleneonatology Program, discussed how his team maintained clinical at Liverpool Women’s Hospital and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital utilizing telemedicine. Liverpool has one of the largest neonatal intensive centers in the UK between the two locations. Our city’s teleneonatology solution allowed us to continue providing safe, high-quality Care to our kids and families across two sites.

To continue Care, Dewhurst’s team went to InTouch Health (now part of Teladoc). And change happened quickly: within two weeks, the program was conceived, organized, implemented, and accepted. Dewhurst said he hopes HIMSS21 attendees understand that putting up a system can be as challenging or as simple as you want it to be.Dewhurst said the team had seen a wide range of positive signals when it comes to determining success. “The speed of reviews and capacity to communicate quickly and effectively with specialists from different hospitals,” Care givers said.