telehealth Archives

Using telehealth to study babies born to mothers infected with SARS-CoV-2

April 27, 2023

Continued advancements in telehealth methods to follow child neurodevelopment will help ensure robust child follow-up and inclusion of diverse cohorts.

Multiple studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 infection can impact pregnant mothers and their fetuses but more research is needed to understand the long-term impact on the neurodevelopment of these children as they get older. Child neurodevelopmental evaluations are typically performed in-person. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the transition to telehealth methods was needed.

Continued advancements in telehealth methods to follow child neurodevelopment will help ensure robust child follow-up and inclusion of diverse cohorts, says a commentary in JAMA Network Open.

Why it matters

Commentary author Sarah Mulkey, M.D., prenatal-neonatal neurologist at Children’s National Hospital, highlights a new study that used a novel telehealth method to look for neurodevelopmental differences in infants ages 6-12 months born to mothers with SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to nonexposed infants of the same age and found no differences in neurodevelopment among the two cohorts. The study adapted a standardized assessment to a telehealth method.

“The results of this study provide needed reassurance to the many mothers who have experienced SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy,” says Dr. Mulkey.

What’s been the hold up in the field?

“Developmental assessments that rely on observation of infants’ developmental skills can naturally make the transition to a telehealth platform,” says Sarah Mulkey, M.D., prenatal-neonatal neurologist at Children’s National Hospital and commentary author. “General movement assessment is an observation-based assessment of infants that can be captured by a parent or caregiver on video, and it has been used in neurodevelopmental outcomes studies of children after antenatal SARS-CoV-2 exposure.”

Moving the field forward

Child outcomes research can have improved enrollment and continuity of participant follow-up due to the availability of remote assessments. Neurodevelopmental tools are being developed that can be used on a telehealth platform or by parent recorded videos.

Researchers from the Children’s National Congenital Zika Virus Program have also developed telehealth-based methods for child outcome research that has been utilized in international Zika outcome studies funded by the Thrasher Research Fund and the NIH.

Read the full commentary, Use of Telehealth Methods to Track Infant Neurodevelopment After In Utero SARS-CoV-2 Exposure, in JAMA Network Open.

New telehealth command center redefines hospital care

March 30, 2022

The new CICU command center redefines hospital care for children with the riskiest heart conditions.

Children’s National Hospital has opened a new telehealth command center that uses cutting-edge technology to keep continuous watch over the most fragile children with critical heart disease. The new command center, located in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU), builds off a care model deployed outside the CICU in 2019, but now offers improved collaborative communication to better help predict and prevent major events, like cardiac arrest.

“The new center acts like an air traffic control tower. It allows our telehealth team to remotely monitor each patient room and alert the bedside team to any abnormal trends,” says Ricardo Munoz, M.D., executive director of the Telemedicine Program and chief of the Division of Critical Care Medicine at Children’s National. “Better communication with the bedside team and easier access to all members of the medical and surgical teams means we can provide the best possible care to these fragile infants.”

In the early stages of recovery after heart surgery, vulnerable patients can regress quickly with few outward physical symptoms. The telehealth virtual surveillance system flags early warning signs that a critically ill infant may suffer a serious adverse event.

The system combines traditional remote monitoring, video surveillance and an artificial intelligence algorithm. New features include:

Neuromonitoring: Doctors are developing an adaptable neuromonitoring system that can help signal an impending brain injury before it happens.
Echocardiography: A cardiologist, embedded in the new command center, is available to expedite and improve communication within the multidisciplinary team.
Real-time audio and video: A telemedicine cart is placed in the room of high-risk patients to allow for rapid communication with a bedside nurse.
E-CICU team: A team of CICU nurses and physicians implement a second layer of safety over patient care by doing a systematic review of video feeds from patient rooms, patient monitors, artificial intelligence tools trained to detect dangerous trends, labs and imaging studies.

Since the center’s launch, the system’s virtual surveillance has tracked 8,697 virtual surveillance activities, resulting in:

2,350 non-critical communications
199 critical communications that prevented major adverse events

“Parents of our highest-risk patients are comforted knowing our team of doctors and nurses are watching their child at every moment,” says Dr. Munoz. “We are one of the few pediatric hospitals in the world integrating telemedicine into our CICU. Our goal is to expand our monitoring capabilities both nationally and internationally to improve pediatric heart care.”

Children’s National is a recipient of the Telehealth Accreditation from URAC and is the first pediatric hospital to receive this recognition for its ability to leverage technologies to advance high-quality care that promotes clinical best practices, consumer protections and care continuity between patients and providers.

The Board of Visitors Telehealth Command Center was funded by an Auxiliary Board of Children’s National.

Utilization Review Accreditation Commission presents telehealth accreditation

Children’s National receives Telehealth Accreditation from URAC

August 25, 2021

URAC accredidation seal

Children’s National Hospital has received Telehealth Accreditation from URAC for its commitment to promoting quality virtual health services for patients and families. Children’s National is the first pediatric hospital to receive this recognition.

“This accreditation demonstrates our hospital’s commitment to continually improving the delivery of care by leveraging best practices in virtual care,” says Clarence Williams, MHA, MBA, director of Telehealth at Children’s National Hospital. “We’re dedicated to using digital tools in support of improving patient outcomes.”

URAC’s telehealth accreditation recognizes organizations that provide telehealth services with a focus on the best medical outcomes and improved safety for their patients.

“By earning Telehealth Accreditation from URAC, Children’s National Hospital operates at the forefront of health care delivery for their medically fragile patients,” said URAC President and CEO Shawn Griffin, M.D. “Meeting URAC’s telehealth standards means Children’s National Hospital provides more than a platform for transaction-based appointments. It demonstrates that Children’s National Hospital leverages technologies to advance high-quality care that promotes clinical best practices, consumer protections and care continuity between patients and providers. As telehealth becomes a more widespread option, Children’s National Hospital distinguishes itself as an established, accredited organization committed to improving the health and well-being of the children they serve.”

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred a rapid increase in virtual care services and this accreditation is one example of the hospital’s commitment to quality and coordination of care, consumer protection and regulatory compliance, all while quickly expanding access through virtual care during a public health emergency.

Utilization Review Accreditation Commission presents telehealth accreditation

New robot helps care for kids in the emergency room at Children’s National Hospital

April 6, 2021

The robot, which is part of the FCC-funded COVID-19 Telehealth Program at Children’s National, is the latest innovation of the program that has rapidly evolved due to the ongoing pandemic.

Children and families who come into the emergency room at Children’s National Hospital may be surprised when their doctor comes in – in the form of a robot. Children’s National introduced a new robot to its Emergency Department (ED) for patients under evaluation for a COVID infection or being treated for other conditions. The robot, which is part of the FCC-funded COVID-19 Telehealth Program at Children’s National, is the latest innovation of the program that has rapidly evolved due to the ongoing pandemic.

“The robot can move in and out of spaces that otherwise we couldn’t get a significant number of providers in, especially with COVID-19 restrictions in place,” said Shireen Atabaki, M.D., M.P.H., associate medical director of Telemedicine, emergency medicine physician and program director for the COVID-19 Telehealth Program at Children’s National. “This is a really exciting program and it implements innovation that we might not have been able to do without the insights we’ve gained from the pandemic.”

The robot is Wi-Fi-enabled and can be remotely controlled by the physician providing the teleconsultation to monitor patient vitals — such as heart rate, body temperature or respiration rate. This allows doctors to work virtually with their team while also having the flexibility to attend to patients faster.

“The pandemic has made us aware of the need to protect patients, families and staff from infectious diseases,” said Alejandro Jose Lopez-Magallon, M.D., medical director of Telemedicine at Children’s National. The robot, he noted, spares clinicians from having to change their PPE, which saves time and gives them the ability to move on to the next patient while nurses and staff continue to provide bedside care.

“We have also seen that whenever a remote clinician is completely alone in the command center and can get on-screen without a mask, in a paradoxical way our patients may be more accepting of seeing a face on a screen that’s not covered with a mask and shield than a stranger using a mask in the same room,” Dr. Lopez-Magallon added.

Soon, the robot will also be used to coordinate subspecialty care — such as cardiac care — in the ED. This will provide more streamlined and expedited care for patients. Instead of leaving with a referral to set up a follow-up appointment with a specialist, patients would be able to receive the consult they need during the same appointment.

The robot is also presenting promising solutions for concerns around the number of restricted visitors. The team at Children’s National recently piloted using an iPad and other technology purchased with the FCC funds to remotely connect family members with patients.

“We downloaded the Zoom app to iPads in our ED to be able to coordinate calls between family members who can’t come in and see patients,” said Dr. Atabaki. “We are looking to implement this as a permanent solution keeping in mind how burdensome and emotionally stressful it has been for many not having the ability to be by the loved one’s side during such a challenging time.”

The FCC funds also covered the telehealth carts, tablets and other connected devices, the telehealth platform, telehealth equipment and innovative AI (augmented intelligence) to treat seriously ill COVID-19 pediatric patients.

The emergency department robot brings the robot-fleet at Children’s National up to three. The first robot was debuted in 2019 to serve children and families in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.

NORD names Natasha Shur, M.D., as hero of rare disease

March 1, 2021

Dr. Shur has a career working as a clinical geneticist for over a decade. She has been a part of the Children’s National community for more than two years. Dr. Shur as well serves as the lead for the Telemedicine Genetics Program under the Rare Disease Institute.

For her advancements in telemedicine genetics and rare diseases, Medical Geneticist Natasha Shur, M.D., received the 2021 Rare Impact Award from the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD). The recognition is the highest honor given to individuals that developed exceptional work benefiting the rare disease community.

“Despite the pandemic and the challenges we have faced, there are still heroes to be found among us from whom we can draw inspiration and motivation to keep moving forward,” said Peter L. Saltonstall, NORD president and CEO.

Given her involvement with several innovative projects at Children’s National Hospital, Dr. Shur built an active in-home telemedicine program where patients are being seen for first visits and follow-ups. Her work is helping families, including those with autistic children.

“Recently, in our division, we have been talking a lot about the concept of ‘failing forward.’ The idea is to try new approaches. These methods may not work, but the status quo does not always work either,” said Dr. Shur. “Since we have such a supportive and wonderful group, we can try new ways of working and new models of care.”

During the pandemic, the division led by Marshall Summar,.M.D., also created a telehealth first model of care and augmented educational apps and opportunities. The goal was to ensure that patients with rare disease would not lose access to care. The medical geneticists, genetic counselors, dieticians and administrative team met daily and cohesively to explore and improve new clinical approaches in order to put patients and families first.

Dr. Shur has a career working as a clinical geneticist for over a decade. She has been a part of the Children’s National community for more than two years. Dr. Shur as well serves as the lead for the Telemedicine Genetics Program under the Rare Disease Institute.

The Rare Disease Institute recently opened its new location on the Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus, a first-of-its-kind pediatric research and innovation hub located in Washington, D.C. The campus will provide a unique, state-of-the-art home for clinical genetic and specialty services.

Acting FCC chairwoman Rosenworcel highlights telehealth for pediatrics

February 3, 2021

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel visited Children’s National Hospital

Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel visited Children’s National Hospital yesterday to highlight the importance of connectivity in healthcare and learn more about how the hospital is using telehealth to serve families during the pandemic. Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., has provided pediatric care for 150 years and is among the nation’s top 10 children’s hospitals. Last year, Children’s National, an academic pediatric health system, saw more than 219,000 children from the capital region and from across the country and around the world.

“So much more can be done to connect children and their families — in both urban and rural parts of the country — to the care they need not only to survive, but to thrive,” said Rosenworcel. “Telehealth can help bridge that gap by bringing specialty care available only in hospital centers to smaller clinics and even the home where problems can be addressed quickly, before they prove life threatening. I was encouraged by the creative work that Children’s National Hospital is doing to address the unique health needs of children from all backgrounds especially during these challenging times.”

Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel was joined by her colleague FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington for a tour of the hospital, where they met with Shireen Atabaki, M.D., M.P.H., associate medical director of Telehealth, Emergency Medicine physician and program director for the COVID-19 Telehealth Program at Children’s National Hospital. The visit also included a demo of a telehealth robot by Ricardo Munoz, M.D., Cardiac Critical Care Medicine chief, and Alejandro Jose Lopez-Magallon, M.D., medical director of Telemedicine, both at Children’s National.

“The pandemic catapulted telehealth as a tool for the future of health care delivery,” said Dr. Atabaki. “With the support of the FCC, Children’s National is excited to introduce a robot and other state-of-the-art digital health technology to support provider-to-patient pediatric care and expert consultations in our hospital’s emergency departments and across our region. These innovations in telemedicine will facilitate access to specialized expertise and care of COVID-19 patients.”

In May 2020, Children’s National Hospital was approved for funding as part of the FCC’s COVID-19 Telehealth Program and established a regional pediatric telehealth consortium. This will enable the hospital to expand its telehealth platform to support 15 health care sites in the region serving children and young adults, providing care to children with COVID-19, as well as those who are medically vulnerable.

Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel is committed to closing the digital divide and sees access to telehealth care services — especially for underserved and marginalized communities — as a top priority. To learn more about telehealth efforts at the FCC, including the COVID-19 Telehealth Program and the Connected Care Pilot Program, visit: https://www.fcc.gov/connecting-americans-health-care.

New grant to help establish maternal mental health telehealth program

November 30, 2020

Children’s National has received a $76,000 grant from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) which will allow a cross-functional team of neonatologists and psychologists to establish a parental mental telehealth program.

Worldwide about 10% of pregnant women and 13% of women who have just given birth experience a mental health disorder, primarily depression, according to the World Health Organization.

“This is a topic that is quickly garnering attention but remains extremely underfunded,” says Lamia Soghier, M.D., F.A.A.P., C.H.S.E., medical director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Children’s National Hospital. “We tend to focus on the babies but don’t pay enough attention to the parents.”

Dr. Soghier’s focus has been on NICU parents who experience postpartum mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), often due to their uniquely stressful experiences.

“We have been screening on a small scale for many years and have noticed a 33-45% rate of postpartum depression symptoms in our NICU families,” she says.

Maternal mental disorders are treatable with effective screening and interventions. Children’s National has received a $76,000 grant from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) which will allow a cross-functional team of neonatologists and psychologists to establish a parental mental telehealth program to expand screening and provide diagnosis, therapy and counseling to NICU parents who experience postpartum mood and anxiety disorders.

Dr. Soghier, along with Ololade ‘Lola’ Okito, M.D., neonatologist at Children’s National, and Erin Sadler, Psy.D., psychologist in the Division of Psychology and Behavioral Health at Children’s National, discuss the importance of this work.

Q: Tell us more about the program you’re establishing.

A: Dr. Soghier: This program will allow us to hire a licensed psychologist who will see families both in the NICU and through follow-up telehealth visits. It provides a one-stop shop for our families, which is particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant will also allow us to develop an iPad loaner program to give loaner iPads to low income families who do not have access to a device or to reliable internet services so that they can receive therapy at home.

Dr. Sadler: We’ll be examining how the implementation of these services can increase accessibility and reduce barriers that prevent assessment and initiation of crucial mental health services for at-risk mothers. Our partnerships will be key. Mothers experiencing barriers to participating in care services in the NICU will also have access to an in-house, licensed psychologist through telehealth services within the comfort of their homes. Families experiencing problems accessing telehealth technology due to economic limits would get the loaner iPad. We’re meeting our families where they are in order to provide these critical services.

Q: Why is grant funding to important in this space?

A: Dr. Okito: Access to perinatal mental health services is limited at the local and national levels, particularly for vulnerable parents of infants admitted to the NICU. Little is known about the effect of interventions to address depression and anxiety among NICU parents, and this grant will allow us to contribute to this very important area of research.

Dr. Sadler: It is not enough to recognize the health disparities that exist amongst communities in our nation. It is imperative that we’re able to explore and examine solutions that can aid in enhancing the equity of care for children and adults alike. As Dr. Okito mentions, there is little to no research available that looks at the feasibility of the support programs we intended to put in place. We hope to create a viable model that could be used to help NICU families across the country.

Q: How is Children’s National uniquely positioned to do this work?

A: Dr. Soghier: Healthy moms and healthy dads equal happy babies. That’s why we will be taking care of the family as a whole. This is truly family-centered care and at the heart of what Children’s National is all about.

Dr. Sadler: The Children’s National NICU team has an established postpartum depression screening program. Through the piloted work, staff have identified notable barriers to universal screening, access to perinatal mental health support and the impact of PMADs on parent engagement in newborn care. As a result, Children’s National is uniquely positioned to directly address such barriers and provide specialized care.

Q: What excites you about this work?

A: Dr. Sadler: As a specialist in perinatal and infant mental health, I look forward to being able to demonstrate the lasting impact maternal mental health services can provide for not only newborns and their families, but for care providers as well. I am excited to have additional opportunities to advocate for the integration of perinatal and infant mental health in non-traditional spaces.

Dr. Okito: I am most excited about the potential to expand universal depression screening among NICU parents. Having done this work for the past three years, I know there are limitations in screening because we’ve only been able to screen parents that are at the patient’s bedside. More screening will lead to more parents getting the referrals and services that they need.

Steady rates of patient satisfaction, reimbursement for cardiac telehealth during COVID-19

November 16, 2020

a telehealth video visit with a patient family

In the first two weeks of COVID-19’s major impact on the U.S., Children’s National Hospital moved most of its subspecialty in-person day-to-day clinics to virtual care. Children’s National Heart Institute was one of the first divisions to offer telehealth visits — in part because the team was an early adopter of telehealth in cardiology for both physician-to-physician consultations and direct-to-patient care, and stood poised to widely implement it.

A poster presentation at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2020 quantified how the rapid transition to direct-to-consumer telehealth services impacted families with children who have congenital heart disease. The findings were presented by first author Kristine Mehrtens, M.S., B.S.N., R.N., C.P.N., clinical manager for the Heart Institute’s Ambulatory Services.

The team found that though in-person cardiology visits decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, direct-to-patient telehealth visits were able to partially compensate for the sudden drop.

Additionally, payer reimbursement rates for these direct-to-consumer telehealth visits were similar to in-person clinic visits.

”This is exciting as prior to COVID-19 we have seen a lower reimbursement rates for these cardiology direct-to-consumer telehealth visits compared to in-person cardiology clinic visits,” said Ashraf S. Harahsheh, M.D., a pediatric cardiologist at Children’s National Hospital who has utilized direct-to-consumer telehealth visits since 2016 and is a senior author on the new study.

Patient satisfaction scores for care providers, including the likelihood of recommending a care provider from Children’s National Hospital, was the same for telehealth follow-up visits as it was for in-person clinic visits before the pandemic.

“As a multidisciplinary team, we agreed that diagnostic studies such as echocardiograms were important to include with follow-up visits,” says Mehrtens. “Together we developed a strategy to ensure we could meet the needs of the patients and also safely conduct in-person visits when necessary.”

Why is this important?

The pandemic and the resulting temporary halt to in-person, non-urgent/emergent visits earlier this year put the most vulnerable people with congenital heart disease at high risk for complications or worsening of their existing heart disease because they are unable to follow the recommended schedule for follow-ups.

The readiness of the Children’s Heart Institute team to quickly move to a telehealth platform successfully bridged the gap between in-person visits for some patients, allowing cardiology surveillance to continue safely.

“I am proud of our team of physicians and advanced care providers,” Harahsheh concludes. “We went from three providers (8%) pre-COVID 19 to 31 (79%) providers offering direct-to-consumer telehealth visits during the pandemic.”

What’s next?

Building on previous, smaller studies of telehealth before the pandemic began, the team will continue to conduct research to assess the safety and efficacy of these telehealth visits over time. The increase in patients who are continuing to see their providers for routine follow-ups via telehealth will allow a larger sample for effective study of this care model.

American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2020
Impact of Telemedicine on Pediatric Cardiac Center’s Ambulatory Response to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (covid-19) Pandemic
P1692
9:00am – 10:00am
Fri, Nov 13 (CST)

Read additional news stories about cardiology telehealth:

Telehealth team shares its pandemic response and discusses the future of telehealth

October 2, 2020

COVID-19 triage tent outside the hospital Emergency Department

The telehealth team at Children’s National Hospital is featured in DataBank IMX’s latest Tech Talk podcast. They discuss how the organization scaled up and managed the telehealth program through the early and mid phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the future of telehealth.

Featured in the discussion are clinical, operational and revenue cycle leaders from Children’s National:

Mary Daymont, M.S.N., R.N., CCM, Vice President, Revenue Cycle & Care Management
Clarence Williams, MHA, MBA, Director, Telehealth Program
Alejandro Lopez-Magallon, M.D., Medical Director, Telehealth Program, Cardiac Critical Care Specialist

Telehealth and AI reduce cardiac arrest in the cardiac ICU

July 14, 2020

The telehealth command center located a few steps away from the cardiac ICU at Children’s National Hospital.

The cardiac critical care team at Children’s National Hospital has developed an innovative Tele-Cardiac Critical Care model aiming to keep constant watch over the most fragile children with critical heart disease in the cardiac ICU. The system combines traditional remote monitoring and video surveillance with an artificial intelligence algorithm trained to flag early warning signs that a critically ill infant may suffer a serious event like cardiac arrest while recovering from complex cardiac surgery. This second set of eyes helps bedside teams improve patient safety and quality of care.

These high risk post-operative patients are often neonates or small infants born with the most complex and critical congenital heart diseases that require surgery or interventional cardiac catheterization in their first days or weeks of life. At these early stages after crucial cardiac surgery, these patients can decompensate dangerously fast with few outward physical symptoms.

The AI algorithm (T3) monitors miniscule changes in oxygen delivery and identifies any mismatch with a child’s oxygen needs. It also tracks and displays small changes in vital sign trends that could lead to a serious complication. The cardiac ICU command center staff then analyzes additional patient data and alerts the bedside team whenever needed.

The Tele-Cardiac Critical Care program started two years ago. In that time, the program has contributed to a significant decrease in post-operative cardiac arrest for this patient population.

“It’s easy to see how a model like this could be adapted to other critical care scenarios, including our other intensive care units and even to adult units,” says Ricardo Munoz, M.D., chief of Cardiac Critical Care and executive director of Telehealth. It allows the physicians and nurses to keep constant watch over these fragile patients without requiring a physician to monitor every heartbeat in person for every patient at every hour of the day to maintain optimal outcomes for all of them.”

Dr. Munoz and Alejandro Lopez-Magallon, M.D., medical director of Telehealth and cardiac critical care specialist, presented data from the pilot program at the American Telemedicine Association’s virtual Annual Meeting on June 26, 2020.

NCC-PDI launches special pediatric medical device competition focused on covid-19 innovations

June 17, 2020

“Innovation in children’s medical devices consistently lags behind that of adults and we need to change that if we are to confront the challenge to children’s health of COVID-19 and future pandemics,” said Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., MBA, PMP, vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National Hospital and principal investigator of NCC-PDI.

As medical data increasingly highlights the serious impact of COVID-19 on children’s health, the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI) announces a special pitch competition focused on COVID-19-related pediatric medical devices that support home health monitoring and telehealth, and improve sustainability, resiliency and readiness in diagnosing and treating children during a pandemic.

The “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!” COVID19 edition is led by NCC-PDI co-founders the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Hospital and the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland and powered by nonprofit accelerator and NCC-PDI member, MedTech Innovator. The finals in the virtual pitch event will be held on July 20, 2020. Winners will each receive a grant award of up to $50,000.

“Despite early reports that COVID-19 posed less of a threat to children, a recent study published by Children’s National shows that considerable numbers of pediatric patients are hospitalized and become critically ill from the disease,” said Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., MBA, PMP, vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National Hospital and principal investigator of NCC-PDI. “Innovation in children’s medical devices consistently lags behind that of adults and we need to change that if we are to confront the challenge to children’s health of COVID-19 and future pandemics.”

Funding for the competition is made possible by a grant from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a philanthropic gift from Mei Xu, founder of e-commerce platform Yes She May, a site dedicated to women-owned brands.

Along with grant funding, one company from the competition will be selected by Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS to receive a one-year residency at JLABS @ Washington, DC, which will be located on the new Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus currently under construction. In addition to the 2021 JLABS residency, the awardee will have access to the JLABS community and expert mentoring by the Johnson & Johnson family of companies.

Submissions for the competition are being accepted now through Monday, July 6, 2020z at the NCC-PDI website, Innovate4Kids.org, where complete details can be found.

NCC-PDI is one of five members in the FDA’s Pediatric Device Consortia Grant Program created to support the development and commercialization of medical devices for children, which lags significantly behind the progress of adult medical devices. Along with Children’s National, University of Maryland and Medtech Innovator, NCC-PDI members include accelerator BioHealth Innovation and design firm Archimedic.

To date, NCC-PDI has mentored over 100 medical device sponsors to help advance their pediatric innovations, with seven devices having received either their FDA market clearance or CE marking. The consortium hosts a major pediatric pitch competition annually that showcases and awards promising pediatric innovations and provides a first-of-its-kind pediatric-focused accelerator program for finalists.

NCC-PDI-COVID19-Edition-Competition

Telehealth connects pediatric heart experts about critical COVID-19 details

May 11, 2020

Telehealth is more than a doctor-to-patient tool during COVID-19. Experts in congenital heart disease meet weekly to share details about how it affects their vulnerable patients.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth has been crucial in allowing doctors to maintain safe contact with patients who require ongoing medical care without an office visit. Just as important is the role that telehealth is playing to connect care providers with each other to ensure that everyone around the world has the information they need to provide the best care possible for this swift-moving disease.

One good example of this specialist-to-specialist thought leadership connection is the ongoing weekly meeting hosted by the Children’s National Hospital cardiac critical care specialists. Since early in the spread of COVID-19, the Cardiac-ICU team, led by cardiovascular specialists including Ricardo Munoz, M.D., chief of cardiac critical care medicine and executive director of telehealth at Children’s National, have connected pediatric clinicians around the world to discuss how best to care for particularly vulnerable patients with pre-existing heart diseases, and to discuss breaking news in epidemiology of the disease and the effectiveness of various treatment approaches.

The video conference attracts hundreds of physicians and nurses who specialize in pediatric cardiac care from countries all over the world. In the last week of April, the meeting featured a late-breaking session to discuss new pediatric intensive care observations of inflammatory symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease, which were being detected in the United Kingdom, Paris and the United States. While more information is needed about this discovery, the ability of these experts to gather and compare disease phenotypes from country to country facilitates both the additional classification of pediatric-related symptoms and improves how all centers, no matter their location, can prepare to treat children who present locally with these symptoms.

In recent weeks, cardiac physicians and nurses from some of the world’s hardest hit regions, including Italy and Spain, have shared detailed information about their on-the-ground experiences to help colleagues in the U.S. and elsewhere better prepare for new developments.

“This new disease is a moving target, especially when it comes to understanding how it might impact children and adults with existing cardiac disease, particularly those with congenital heart disease,” says Dr. Munoz. “It is extremely important that we learn from each other, especially when we are able to connect with our colleagues in the epicenters of the most serious outbreaks of COVID-19. We are happy to host this important weekly meeting with the goal of helping every specialist keep as many patients with cardiac diseases as safe as possible throughout the global health emergency.”

If you would like to join these weekly telehealth meetings, please send your request to COVIDMultiCICUResponse@childrensnational.org.

Neuropsychology pilots robotic telepresence technology for telehealth

May 4, 2020

Karin S. Walsh, Psy.D., and Gerard Gioia, Ph.D., in the Division of Neuropsychology pilot robotic telepresence technology to improve video visits.

The telehealth program at Children’s National Hospital continues to expand access to remote specialty care for families, as well as increase consultation and liaison services to hospitals and clinicians who lack specialty care services on site. The Children’s National Division of Neuropsychology has been a leader in adopting multiple telehealth services including direct-to-consumer video visits, psychotherapy video visits, provider consultations and provider training and supervision.

Telehealth as a whole has been shown to increase access to care, with video visits in particular showing greater clinical and educational impact compared to telephone communications. Despite this, one key limitation has been the immobility of technology used to capture video visits.

To solve for immobility, Karin S. Walsh, Psy.D., is leading a pilot study testing the feasibility and acceptability of telepresence robotics in the division. Robot telepresence devices provide a unique approach to video visits, allowing for extended physical mobility and presence, while expanding interactions between providers and patients, supervisors and trainees and in educational interactions. Traditional video visits demonstrate good feasibility and acceptability by patients, families and staff. This new approach aims to increase the “presence” of the provider and further improve clinical impact, educational impact and patient satisfaction.

The division will initially incorporate two robots into clinical care beginning in May 2020. The pilot study is expected to be carried out over the next 12-18 months, which is particularly timely given the COVID-19 pandemic. The robots, from Double Robotics, offer a high-tech, secure, integrated platform in a device that is user friendly and effective for moving freely through the clinical environment.

“With the addition of the telepresence robots, we anticipate an increase in the quality of care and access for patients and families to neuropsychological specialty care,” says Dr. Walsh. “In addition, given the geographic separation of the program – faculty and trainees are spread across six different locations – the versatile technology will increase the division’s ability to include clinicians with particular expertise into clinical sessions and consultations, as well as in training programs.”

After the pilot study, the team will assess the acceptability of robotic telepresence technology and the special qualities that this modality may offer to enhance quality of care within neuropsychology and within collaborating medical teams.

Technology bridges knowledge gaps in rare bone disease care

March 9, 2020

Dr. Tosi and colleagues presented on the NIH Rare Disease Day 2020 panel, Nontraditional Approaches to Improving Access for Rare Diseases.

As part of the global observance of Rare Disease Day in February, the NCATS and NIH Clinical Center hosted a special event to raise awareness about rare diseases, the people they affect and NIH research collaborations under way to address scientific challenges and advance new treatments.

This year, Children’s National Hospital orthopaedic surgeon Laura Tosi, M.D., took part in an afternoon panel, Nontraditional Approaches to Improving Access for Rare Diseases, where she outlined her work as the faculty chair of the Rare Bone Disease TeleECHO, a virtual meeting that allows care providers and experts to come together via the Zoom platform, discuss diagnosis of specific disorders and present cases for group input.

Dr. Tosi and the Rare Bone Disease Alliance have called Project ECHO Rare Bone Disease a game changer for care of these complex conditions. Rare bone disorders are only about 5% of all birth defects but include 461 skeletal disorders caused by 437 genes – making it difficult for any physician to see enough cases of any one disorder to correctly diagnose and treat it.

“Most doctors are like me, a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon. I need to know a lot of different rare diseases and it’s hard to keep everybody on the cutting edge,” Dr. Tosi says. “Even though we have found the genes for most of the disorders, the phenotypic overlaps, shortage of specialists and the multi-disciplinary needs of so many of the patients add to the challenges.”

So 7 months ago, Dr. Tosi joined together with colleagues at the Rare Bone Disease Alliance and the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation to launch Project ECHO Rare Bone Disease. The now monthly telehealth meeting engages a distinguished faculty of experts from around the world and from across the spectrum of care for these rare bone disorders, including specialists in genetics, endocrinology, orthopaedics and others.

Project ECHO is a specific model for bridging distance and creating a network of professionals, with the goal of leveling the playing field for all by making vital information accessible to everyone, regardless of their location. In healthcare the model transcends traditional “telemedicine,” however. The program, launched from the University of New Mexico, self-describes itself as “telementoring, a guided practice where the participating clinician retains responsibility for the patient” but is able to discuss diagnosis and therapeutic recommendations with a set of esteemed faculty via a regular virtual meeting series.

In the case of the Rare Bone Disease TeleECHO, the ECHO’s faculty decided on two major foci for the curriculum. Half of the content is about how to make the right diagnosis and the other half shares the latest information about specific diseases. The sessions also offer free CME to attendees.

Dr. Tosi says that while finding cases to discuss can sometimes be challenging when it comes to rare bone diseases, she takes responsibility on herself to make sure the content is robust each month. So far the meetings have attracted between 40 and 90 participants per session – a great engagement rate for such a young teleECHO program.

“I believe ECHO advances knowledge of healthcare and democratizes it by offering universal accessibility across the globe,” Tosi notes.

The Rare Bone Disease Alliance, which consists of 12 organizations, experts and patient families working together, is now deciding what’s next for the Rare Bone Disease TeleECHO. They may develop disorder-specific ECHOs, are studying the frequency of the sessions and how best to improve participation for all sessions. The idea is to increase access to this expertise even further, as it could have critical impacts on patients worldwide living with these rare diseases.

In terms of key take-aways from the panel of experts at Rare Disease Day, the hope is that more disease groups might leverage this type of technology to connect people in nontraditional ways. Doing so has the potential to ensure that everyone with a rare disease receives the best support and care possible because their doctors have the knowledge they need when they need it.

Watch more sessions from the NIH’s Rare Disease Day 2020.

Children’s National partners with Sabará Hospital Infantil to provide pediatric telehealth services in Brazil

November 22, 2019

telemedicine

Through a new partnership with Sabará Hospital Infantil in São Paulo, Brazil, Children’s National Hospital will provide access to pediatric cardiac intensive care specialists and consultations via telehealth. This is the first international telehealth offering from Children’s National for pediatric cardiac critical care.

The partnership includes sharing care proposals, second opinion for complex cardiology cases, alignment with international benchmarks, adoption of diagnostic and therapeutic protocols, development of critical mass for continuous process improvement and continued training. Joint multidisciplinary visits will also be carried out to help Sabará validate and improve existing protocols and learn about innovations and service improvement opportunities.

Children’s National will also provide teleconference-based training for Sabará nursing staff and second opinions through medical teleconsultation with specialists in all areas of pediatric cardiology, based on each patient’s individual needs.

“It is an honor to partner with Sabará Hospital lnfantil,” says Ricardo Munoz, M.D., executive director of Telemedicine and chief of Cardiac Critical Care at Children’s National. “We look forward to working together toward our shared goal of providing the best health care possible for the children in Brazil.”

Virtual cardiology follow-ups may save families time and money

November 14, 2019

Virtual cardiology follow-ups via computer or smartphone are a feasible alternative to in-person patient follow-ups for some pediatric cardiac conditions.

A poster presentation at the AHA Scientific Sessions shows successful implementation of virtual care delivered directly to patients and families via technology.

Health provider follow-ups delivered via computer or smartphone is a feasible alternative to in-person patient follow-ups for some pediatric cardiac conditions, according to the findings of a pilot study presented at the AHA Scientific Sessions this week.

“We’ve used telemedicine in pediatric cardiology for physician-to-physician communications for years at Children’s National, thanks to cardiologists like Dr. Craig Sable,” says Ashraf Harahsheh, M.D., cardiologist at Children’s National Hospital and senior author of the study. “But this is the first time we’ve really had the appropriate technology to speak directly to patients and their families in their homes instead of requiring an in-person visit.”

“We developed it [telemedicine] into a primary every day component of reading echocardiograms around the region and the globe,” says Craig Sable, M.D., associate chief of cardiology at Children’s National. “Telemedicine has enabled doctors at Children’s National to extend our reach to improve the care of children and avoid unnecessary transport, family travel and lost time from work.”

Participants in the virtual visit pilot study were previously established patients with hyperlipidemia, hypercholesterolemia, syncope, or who needed to discuss cardiac testing results. The retrospective sample included 18 families who met the criteria and were open to the virtual visit/telehealth follow up option between 2016 and 2019. Six months after their virtual visit, none of the participants had presented urgently with a cardiology issue. While many (39%) had additional visits with cardiology scheduled as in person, none of those subsequent in-person visits were a result of a deficiency related to the virtual visit.

“There are many more questions to be answered about how best to appropriately use technology advances that allow us to see and hear our patients without requiring them to travel a great distance,” adds Dr. Harahsheh. “But my team and I were encouraged by the results of our small study, and by the anecdotal positive reviews from families who participated. We’re looking forward to determining how we can successfully and cost-effectively implement these approaches as additional options for our families to get the care they need.”

The project was supported by the Research, Education, Advocacy, and Child Health Care (REACH) program within the Children’s National Hospital Pediatric Residency Program.

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Direct-to-Consumer Cardiology Telemedicine: A Single Large Academic Pediatric Center Experience
Aaron A. Phillips, M.D., Craig A. Sable, M.D., FAAP; Christina Waggaman, M.S.; and Ashraf S. Harahsheh, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.A.A.P.
Poster Presentation by first author Aaron Phillips, M.D., a third-year resident at Children’s National
CH.APS.12 – Man vs. Machine: Tech in Kids
AHA Scientific Sessions 2019
November 17, 2019
12:30 -1:00 p.m.

Children’s National launches telehealth collaboration with Whittle School & Studios

October 7, 2019

The School-Based Telehealth Program provides students quick access to medical care, rapid diagnosis of medical conditions, and better management of chronic conditions like asthma and diabetes, while minimizing time away from school for children – and from work for parents.

Children’s National Hospital and Whittle School & Studios announced a collaboration to provide students at the Whittle School’s D.C. campus with on-site video connectivity to health professionals at the hospital throughout the 2019-20 school year.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with Children’s National to offer our students world-class medical care from compassionate providers,” said Dennis Bisgaard, head of Whittle’s D.C. campus. “The health and safety of our students is our top priority, and this new collaboration ensures that they’ll be in excellent hands.”

A registered nurse from Children’s National will work on-site at Whittle’s D.C. campus to provide acute care, first aid, immunization record-keeping, medication management, EpiPen storage and training and more.

Children’s National’s School-Based Telehealth Program will also be available at the Whittle School. The on-site nurse will have the ability to use secure video-conferencing technology to connect students with board-certified physicians from Children’s National, if necessary.

The School-Based Telehealth Program provides students quick access to medical care, rapid diagnosis of medical conditions, and better management of chronic conditions like asthma and diabetes, while minimizing time away from school for children – and from work for parents. The program will complement existing care the student may already receive from their medical home or primary care provider.

“We are excited to collaborate with the Whittle School to design a program centered on our shared vision of helping children,” said Denice Cora-Bramble, M.D., executive vice president and chief medical officer, ambulatory and community health services at Children’s National. “Our goal is that this new collaboration will provide access to highly-specialized health care expertise to patients and families and our hope is that school-based nursing services, coupled with telehealth technology, will improve students’ health and education outcomes.”

Advances in telemedicine start with new cardiac critical care robot

February 15, 2019

Dr. Bear Bot’s “robot-only” parking space in the Cardiac ICU. Alejandro Lopez-Magallon, M.D., is featured on the robot display screen, where he drives the robot from his location in the command center, in order to visit patient rooms and capture additional medical information and connect with patients, parents, and attending nurses and physicians.

The telemedicine robot at Children’s National arrived in late August 2018 and recently completed a 90-day test period in the tele-cardiac intensive care unit (cardiac ICU) at Children’s National. The bot travels between rooms as a virtual liaison connecting patients and attending nurses and physicians with Ricardo Munoz, M.D., executive director of the telemedicine program and the division chief of critical cardiac care, and Alejandro Lopez-Magallon, M.D., a cardiologist and medical director of the telemedicine program.

Drs. Munoz and Lopez-Magallon use a nine-screen virtual command center to remotely monitor patient vitals, especially for infants and children who are recovering from congenital heart surgery, flown in for an emergency diagnostic procedure, such as a catheterization, or who are in the process of receiving a heart or kidney transplant. Instead of traveling to individual rooms to check in on the status of one patient, the doctors can now monitor multiple patients simultaneously, enhancing their ability to diagnose, care for and intervene during critical events.

If Drs. Munoz or Lopez-Magallon need to take an X-ray or further examine a patient, they drive the robot from its ‘robot-only’ parking space adjacent to the nurse’s station, and connect with attending doctors and nurses in the teaming area. The onsite clinicians accompany one of the telemedicine doctors, both of whom remain in the command center but appear virtually on the robot’s display screen, to the patient’s room to capture additional medical information and to connect with patients and families.

Over time, the telemedicine team will measure models of efficiency in the tele-cardiac ICU, such as through-put, care coordination, and standards of safety, quality and care, measured by quality of life and short- and long-term patient health outcomes. This test run will serve as a model for future command centers offering remote critical care.

Ricardo Munoz and Alejandro Lopez-Magallon

(R) Ricardo Munoz, M.D., executive director of the telemedicine program and the division chief of critical cardiac care, and Alejandro Lopez-Magallon, M.D., a cardiologist and the associate medical director of the telemedicine program in the tele-cardiac ICU command center.

“As technology and medicine advance, so do our models of telemedicine, which we call virtual care,” says Shireen Atabaki, M.D., M.P.H., an emergency medicine physician at Children’s National, who manages an ambulatory virtual health program, which enables patients to use virtual health platforms to connect with doctors, but from the comfort of their home. “We find the patient-centered platforms and this new technology saves families’ time and we’re looking forward to studying internal models to see how this can help our doctors, enabling us to do even more.”

The ongoing virtual connection program that Dr. Atabaki references launched in spring 2016 and has enabled 900 children to connect to a doctor from a computer, tablet or smart phone, which has saved families 1,600 driving hours and more than 41,000 miles over a two-year period. Through this program, virtual care is provided to children in our region by 20 subspecialists, including cardiologists, dermatologists, neurologists, urgent care doctors, geneticists, gastroenterologists and endocrinologists.

To extend the benefits of virtual communication, while saving mileage and time, Dr. Atabaki and the telemedicine team at Children’s National will partner with K-12 school systems, local hospitals and health centers and global health systems.

The Children’s National robot was named Dr. Bear Bot after a 21-day voting period with patients and staff, beating 14 other child-selected names, including SMARTy (Special Medical Access to Remote Technology), Dr. Bot and Rosie. Dr. Bear Bot celebrated with an official reveal party on Valentine’s Day, which was streamed to over 220 patients through the hospital’s closed-circuit television and radio station.

Millenial Panel at Population Strategies for Childrens Health Summit

Population health and value based care discussed at the Population Strategies for Children’s Health Summit

March 20, 2018

With sponsorship from Cerner Corporation, Children’s National held the first Population Strategies for Children’s Health (PSCH) event on February 19 – 20, 2018 at The Westin City Center in Washington, D.C. Speakers and attendees gathered from around the country to discuss pediatric population health and the transition to value based care.

PSCH opened with an insightful presentation from Ellen-Marie Whelan Ph.D., CRNP, FAAN, chief population health officer at the CMS Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services. Her presentation, “Medicaid Transformation to Value Based Care,” explored an incentivized health care delivery system reform that will result in better care, smarter spending and healthier people.

Sean Gleeson, M.D., M.B.A., president of Partners for Kids at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, spoke about the mechanics of Partners for Kids and the population health strategies they choose to implement. These strategies require an entire enterprise to be engaged and they must be an intentional component of each healthcare organization. Dr. Gleeson put it simply that population health turns healthcare “right side up” by tying financial incentives to positive value outcomes versus upside down when health organizations make more money when kids are sicker.

A presentation from William Feaster, M.D., M.B.A., chief medical information officer at CHOC Children’s Hospital, and Brian Jacobs, M.D., vice president, chief medical information officer and chief information officer at Children’s National Health System, delved into implementing condition-specific pediatric registries. They highlighted that it’s necessary to integrate registries and workflows into the daily work of clinicians and make them actionable to encourage engagement.

Another highlight of the conference was the millennial panel “The Current and Future State of Health Care from a Consumer’s Perspective.” The panel consisted of Janice Bitetti, a physician and mother of a 10-year-old with Type 1 diabetes; Jonathan Morris, a 15-year-old Type 1 Diabetes patient at Children’s National; and moderator Emily Webber, M.D., FAAP, chief medical information officer at Riley Children’s Hospital. Panel participants shared their take on the current state of Type 1 diabetes care, and the way millennials interact with healthcare. Both Jonathan and Janice agreed that the intensive nature of Type 1 diabetes care puts many families who don’t have the time, resources and initiative that they do in a very difficult place.

Other speakers throughout the two day event explored topics including population health strategies to reduce child health disparities, the role of telehealth in population health, care coordination and coaching to health, and technology in population health.

Brian Jacobs, M.D. introduces the Millennial Panel at the Population Strategies for Children’s Health Summit.

Population Strategies for Children’s Health Summit

January 3, 2018

little girl holding a stuffed bear

Children’s National, with sponsorship from Cerner Corporation, is excited to announce the first Population Strategies for Children’s Health Summit on February 19 – 20, 2018 at The Westin in Washington, D.C. This is the first summit focused exclusively on comprehensive population health management approaches that can help children reach their highest levels of health and potential.

Join us in developing new ideas and best practices that engage millennial healthcare consumers and address challenges pediatric providers face in transitioning to value-based care. You’ll learn how population health management strategies can improve care quality for an entire pediatric population in a way that supports your health system’s bottom line.

Speakers at the summit will focus on topics such as:

Health policy
Care coordination
Physician engagement
Registries and risk stratification
Telehealth
Health disparities
Taking on risk

Get a sneak peek of the featured Millennial Panel discussion on February 20:

The current and future state of health care from a consumer’s perspective

Health care is a dynamic, constantly evolving entity. This three-person panel plus moderator takes on the consumer point of view to discuss what is and isn’t working in health care today. The panel consists of a pediatrician and mom of a child with Type 1 diabetes and a 15-year-old Type 1 diabetes patient. They’ll share their experiences and thoughts about how they believe health care will progress in the future.

For more information about the 2018 Population Strategies for Children’s Health Summit, please visit our website.

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