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 Health offers unique and extensive telemedicine capabilities that 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 Health
Telemedicine Programs at St. Joseph’s
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 University Medical Center incorporates Telemedicine technology into its daily routine of service excellence.
- Telepsychology – Psychiatric Emergency Clinicians at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center provide assessment and consultation to patients and family members on an as-needed basis in the St. Joseph’s Wayne Medical Center 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 University 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.
- 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.
- Passaic Vicinage Hospital Project – A partnership between Passaic Vicinage Family Division Domestic Violence Unit and St. Joseph’s University Medical Center, the program allows victims of violence the comfort of receiving immediate medical attention as well as a temporary restraining order while at SJUMC through the use of a teleconferencing system. The project allows victims coming into St. Joseph’s ER for treatment to obtain temporary restraining orders from a judge via St. Joseph’s telemedicine program.
- Telestroke – The use of telemedicine technology for stroke, otherwise known as Telestroke, allows for rapid consultation with stroke specialists remotely from any location within minutes and enables St. Joseph’s University Medical Center to emergently treat patients and support smaller community hospitals. “Real time” HD videoconferencing assessment allows for emergency treatment to be administered. Stroke education is also enhanced with the use of telestroke.