Page 10 - Christiana Care Focus April 2019

Cover Story |
Even more innovative ways to reach our patients,
and for our patients to reach Christiana Care.
Health care –
anywhere.
This kind of service can be especially valuable for patients with movement
disorders or other conditions where they may have mobility limitations
and often have difficulties in traveling to a doctor’s office.
Patients value the
convenience and the
personal contact that telehealth offers, said Joanne
C. Brice, M.D., FACP, Christiana Care’s medical director for consumer initiatives. “Setting the scene for a telehealth visit by establishing a private,
office-like background and maintaining eye contact during the video-based visit helps establish a ‘webside manner.’”
Telehealth brings in-time specialty care to patients without
a separate appointment. At Christiana Care’s Middletown Emergency Department, a new telehealth pathway, launched in August, brings urgently needed psychiatric assessment quickly and directly to patients experiencing a mental health crisis. Connected by iPad from Wilmington Hospital, a psychiatrist can evaluate a patient with indications of suicide risk while the patient is in the Middletown ED.
All of Christiana Care’s emergency departments screen for depression. The new telehealth pathway means patients who visit for another reason and screen positive for symptoms of depression can get specialized mental health care on the spot.
“We can provide an immediate intervention for someone
who might otherwise have gone home with a referral,” said Linda J. Lang, M.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry and physician leader of the Behavioral Health Service Line.
Joanne C. Brice, M.D., FACP
Telemedicine:
A new kind of “house call”
Right from the comfort of his home, patient Robert McAlpine can connect with his neurologist Justin Martello, M.D., through a new telehealth pilot. Using a video link, Dr. Martello can perform a neurology screening “including performing most
of the motor exam of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale and examining tremors while the patient completes the Archimedes spiral worksheet,” he said..
Providers can observe patients walking around the room during telehealth visits as they would on a normal visit.” With the patient’s consent, family members and other caregivers also can be looped in to teleconference.
Through telemedicine, Christiana Care is erasing the boundaries between the doctor’s office and the living room.
8 CHRISTIANA CARE HEALTH SYSTEM