Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare > Volume 14, Number 4 > Pp. 173-177

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Cady, R. Articles by Finkelstein, S. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Social Bookmarking                      What's this?

EDUCATION & PRACTICE Overview

Home telehealth for children with special health-care needs

Rhonda Cady ^* , Anne Kelly  and Stanley Finkelstein ^*

^* Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Division of Health Informatics; Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Correspondence: Rhonda Cady, Division of Health Informatics, University of Minnesota, 420 Delaware Street SE MMC 511, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA (Fax: +1 612 625 7166; Email: cadyx010{at}umn.edu)

The U Special Kids (USK) programme at the University of Minnesota provides intensive care coordination and case management services to children with complex special health-care needs. We conducted a one-year pilot study to evaluate the feasibility of videoconferencing between the USK office and family homes. To ensure easy installation, families were provided with prepackaged equipment and software. However, the families had different Internet providers, different modems and/or routers and different firewall software, which required case-by-case resolution during home visits by the project coordinator. Five families participated in 3–5 videoconferencing sessions with a USK nurse. All connections with urban families had clear audio and video, whereas connections with rural families had clear audio, but unclear video. All of the scheduled virtual visits were rated by nurses as providing information that was similar to a telephone call. However, the unscheduled virtual visits were rated by the nurses as providing more information than a telephone call, suggesting that home-based videoconferencing may be useful in the management of children with complex special health-care needs.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J E. Nieves, L. S Godleski, K. M Stack, and T. Zinanni Videophones for intensive case management of psychiatric outpatients J Telemed Telecare, January 1, 2009; 15(1): 51 - 54. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]