Program Overview
Boston Children’s offers hospital to hospital Virtual Consults to support on-demand or scheduled clinical collaboration between clinicians for evaluation and treatment recommendations. This service helps optimize current clinical resources while improving patient outcomes and experiences. Hospitals can also retain patients that may have otherwise needed to have care transferred to access a specialist.
The Virtual Consults program offers a range of services including Critical Care Transport and specialty consults. IDHA works with external hospitals and Boston Children’s teams to provide one-of-a-kind virtual programs.
Critical Care Transport (TeleConnect) has seen a substantial impact, with survey results reflecting:
- 93% telemedicine aided in decision-making, according to ICU physicians
- 46% of calls had a change in patient management, according to ICU physicians
- 20% of calls had a change in transport modality, according to community hospital physicians
Healthcare Context
Virtual Consults enables patients, families, clinicians, and institutions to tap into Boston Children’s expertise while keeping care local. Boston Children’s clinicians use digital technologies to provide patient care, professional consultations and education at a distance.