Valhalla, N.Y.-based Westchester Medical Center Health Network implemented a telemedicine program that allows neonatologists at Maria Fareri Children's Hospital in Valhalla to provide remote care to newborn patients at HealthAlliance Hospital.
WMCHealth's neonatology and resuscitation program aims to decrease Kingston, N.Y.-based HealthAlliance Hospital's need to transfer newborn babies to neonatal intensive care units. With video telemedicine technology, neonatologists at Maria Fareri Children's Hospital can virtually assess HealthAlliance patients and direct the hospital's providers administering care. Both HealthAlliance and Maria Fareri Children's are members of WMCHealth.
"About 10 percent of babies will need some assistance to start breathing after delivery, and [one] in 1,000 will need extensive resuscitation," HealthAlliance Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology Dean Bloch, MD, said in a news release. "These high-risk situations may not occur every day at HealthAlliance, but it is really exciting that, through telemedicine, we now have this highest level of care available to every newborn right here in our local community."
If a newborn patient requires more complex care, the patient would be transferred to Maria Fareri Children's regional neonatal ICU.