Akron (Ohio) Children's Hospital is helping families feel more connected to their infants in the neonatal intensive care unit through live camera feeds, reports Fox 8 Cleveland.
In September, Akron Children's installed 118 bed cameras in its NICUs. Donations from the nonprofit group Walk for Babies funded the initiative.
Akron Children's is a regional referral center, meaning some families might live several hours away from the hospital. The cameras allow parents to see their child in the NICU even when they can't be at the hospital.
Loved ones can access their child's live video stream through secure log-in credentials. In the first month the cameras were live, Akron Children's saw more than 12,000 logins from users as far as California and Mexico.
"That shows to me and to the rest of our staff that families are interested; they want to see their babies, their families want to see their babies, and I think from talking to the families it helps make them feel more secure," Kim Firestone, a neonatal outreach educator at Akron Children's Hospital, told Fox 8 Cleveland.
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