Benefits to Telemedicine

Lee Memorial Health System is bringing the best minds of medicine and putting them all in one room. Health experts are using a new technology called telemedicine to find treatment for patients without having to transfer them to different areas. The neonatal intensive care unit is using the new equipment with baby Felix, who was born at just 29 weeks gestation. Since birth, he’s remained at the NICU at Golisano Children’s Hospital. Dr. William Liu, a neonatologist with Golisano Children’s Hospital, says he felt it was time to seek information from other health experts. “We have begun to be concerned, could Felix have some inborn error of metabolism or some unusual genetic disease that might be contributing to his symptoms?” Dr. Liu brought in telemedicine to have health experts in Miami help evaluate Felix. “It allows us, in a secure HIPAA compliant fashion, to access specialties and information that we would not necessarily be able to have on site,” said Dr. Liu. Telemedicine is particularly helpful with genetic testing. Genetic metabolic specialists help diagnose rare diseases, but they are often found in larger areas. Without telemedicine a geneticist would not be able to see the baby without transferring him, which can be costly to the family and difficult for the baby. “She really was able to look at him and figure out what she thinks it is and ask Dr. Liu to do more tests so I think it will help,” said Venesia Escalante, Felix’s mother. “With genetic diseases often times you have to play a little bit like a detective. You have to be able to look at the baby’s physical findings and discern certain, what we call, dimorphic features. By having telemedicine services available, we can access the expertise of a geneticist or a metabolic specialist and they are able to actually talk directly to the parents. They are able to visualize the patient which is very, very important as opposed to just a telephone consultation in this case,” said Dr. Liu. After the evaluation, health experts at Lee Memorial Health System can use the suggestions in hopes of finding the right diagnosis for the patient. View More Health Matters video segments at leememorial.org/healthmatters/ Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of medical care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For nearly a century, we’ve been providing our community with everything from primary care treatment to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries. Visit leememorial.org