What is Telemedicine?

According to the American Telemedicine Association: "Telemedicine is the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve patients’ health status."

Videoconferencing, transmissions of still images, e-health including patient portals, remote monitoring of vital signs, continuing medical education, and nursing call centers, are all considered part of Telemedicine.

St. Joseph’s unique and extensive Telemedicine capabilities allow us to share important medical content. Our Telemedicine program is currently used to:

• Collaborate with other health institutions, in and out of the State of New Jersey, on challenging cases
• Provide specialty pediatric services to neighboring counties
• Bring better efficiencies to the delivery of health services across St. Joseph’s Healthcare System
• Support Medical Missions for Children in providing high quality healthcare for needy children around the world.

Telemedicine at Work

With a “patients first” approach to quality care and clinical service excellence, St. Joseph’s continues to make trendsetting strides in the field of Telemedicine. The following are examples of how St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center incorporates Telemedicine technology into its daily routine of service excellence.

• Telepsychology - Psychiatric Emergency Clinicians at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center provide assessment and consultation to patients and family members on an as-needed basis in the St. Joseph’s Wayne Hospital Emergency Room. Connectivity is enabled through the use of telemedicine equipment, offering those in need the opportunity to interact in real time with psychiatric physicians at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center.

• St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital - In 2007, one of the nation’s first truly High Definition video conferencing connections was established between St. Joseph’s and St. Jude. With this new HD technology, video conferencing calls are made at up to 4000 Kilobytes per second. During these interactions, physicians at both facilities share their expertise, while viewing HD images and discussing cases ‘LIVE’ in real time.

• Medical Education - As a major teaching hospital, more than 180 Residents and Fellows, and over 60 physicians complete their specialty training at St. Joseph’s each year.  Our collaborative expertise, research, education, and compassion ensure that our patients receive highly advanced care.As medical information changes and advancements are made, our professionals, and those we train, gain first-hand knowledge through our HD Telemedicine capabilities. This is due in part to video conferencing technologies that allow our Medical Education Department to conduct educational calls on a weekly basis in collaboration with other accredited teaching facilities such as St. Francis Hospital and St. Jude.

• Perinatology - With the use of Telemedicine technology, our team of High Risk Obstetric experts are now able to consult when a clinical decision needs to be made and travel between locations is an obstacle for both physician and patient.  The team is able to view a HD Ultrasound image of the fetus in real time from the primary Obstetrician/Gynecologist’s office.  Together the physicians can determine the best plan of care for the mother and her baby.

• Telecardiology - Through our HD Telemedicine capabilities, St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Paterson, New Jersey, and the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City are engaged in an ongoing clinical collaboration. Physicians at both hospitals consult on a weekly basis to discuss complex pediatric cardiology cases including pediatric open-heart surgery.

For additional information about the Telemedicine Program at St. Joseph’s Healthcare System, please contact:

John P.L. Manke, RN, BSN, PCCN

Manager, Telemedicine Program

973.754.4473 or via email at mankej@sjhmc.org 

Click on the link below for a video highlighting Telemedicine at St. Joseph's.