School-Based Telehealth
Through our School-based Telehealth Program, school staff can use secure video conferencing technology to connect a student with a board-certified physician from Children’s National. A child can visit their school nurse who then determines if the child needs to be seen by a physician. Athletic trainers, coaches and PE teachers can also refer students following a sports injury.
The child will then receive quicker access to the care they need, and rapid diagnosis of medical conditions such as concussion, to support a faster recovery period. Plus, parents no longer have to make arrangements to visit the doctor’s office or wait in line at a hospital or urgent care center.
This service does not seek to replace a child's pediatrician, but helps to support community providers and supplement a child's urgent care needs.
Services of our program include, but are not limited to:
- Health management for acute and chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes
- Anticipatory guidance
- Health education and screening
- Family meetings
Benefits of School-Based Telehealth
-
Our School-based Telehealth Program reduces the time and difficulty around traveling to and from appointments by connecting the two parties via a secure video connection. No matter where a child or school is located, we’re making it easier to get quick access to care from our providers.
Benefits include:
- Access to a Children’s National physician, regardless of the child or school’s geographical location
- Improving access to mental and behavioral healthcare
- Early recognition of sports injury to decrease the long term effects of missed diagnosis
- Reducing transportation costs
- Minimizing time off school for kids and time off work for parents
- Minimizing time spent securing an appointment with the physician’s office
- Helping kids with chronic or complex conditions manage their health and medications
- Improving health and educational outcomes
-
The Telehealth team at Children’s National is ready to bring world-class care to our community and beyond. We’re here to support pediatric care providers in our shared vision of helping children by:
- Providing additional support to school nurses
- Providing accessible care in a timely manner
- Offering highly specialized healthcare expertise not commonly available in schools
- Supporting local healthcare systems and community providers
- Improving health and education outcomes
-
Children’s National evaluates, monitors and manages the care of children and adolescents with concussions. The team focuses on shifting the paradigm of acute care from unnecessary neuroimaging to screening and management initiation as soon as possible after an injury. By offering telehealth at schools, we aim to identify concussions early, manage symptoms to prevent long-term harm, and minimize the need for CT scans that expose children to unnecessary radiation.
Our concussion telehealth program offers:
- Timely access to an expert medical doctor who can screen the patient at the sidelines and in school
- Consultation with the athletic trainer and school nurse
- Capabilities to video conference parents for the visit and health education
- The ability to triage students to appropriate follow up appointments with experts in our Safe Concussion Outcome Recovery & Education (SCORE), Neurology and Sports Medicine programs
- Concussion diagnosis and rehabilitation to prevent post-concussion syndrome, and side effects such as prolonged headache, behavior change, depression and cognitive challenges
- Ongoing concussion education on state-of-the art practices for school staff
Our team works closely with each school to create a program tailored to you and your students and families. To arrange school-based telehealth services or learn more about telehealth programs with Children’s National, email us.