Tele-Consultations
Imagine if a doctor at TheSick Kids Hospital in Canada can examine a patient in Children Hospital, EWMSC, Trinidad, without taking a flight or leaving the compound! Well, Telehealth makes this possible!
Telehealth connects the healthcare team at Sick Kids with patients and health care professional in Trinidad. The Telehealth office at the EWMSC, is the single point of entry for all tele-consultation requests at the hospital, with the Telehealth Programme Manager being responsible for planning and coordinating all tele-consultations.
The Telehealth Programme Manager will screen all referrals, arrange for pre clinic testing and act as a liaison between our local specialist and Sick Kids. The tele-consultation process was set up to closely replicate the standard clinic process to ensure that the specialist using the service would be familiar and comfortable with using telehealth to see their patients.
The tele-consultation process ensures that:
- Existing referral patterns to the Children’s Hospital, EWMSC are honoured.
- Each new Tele-consultation referral comes from a specialist/ physician
- Follow-up patient consultation can be booked by our local hospital staff, EWMSC, or by the patient’s primary care physician following consultation with the local specialist.
- Pre-clinic tests are made available prior to the Telehealth clinic day.
- All patients are registered and have a local health record file.
- Families applying for assistance through the Herbie Fund channel their requests through the Telehealth Programme. This would facilitate a faster response to requests for assistance.
The Telehealth network infrastructure supports safe, effective and ethical tele-consultations. The Telehealth Programme Manager will operate the technology and facilitate patient consultation. Clinicians from a wide range of hospital discipline can use the system for medical and surgical referrals, follow-up appointments, patient care conference, discharge planning conferences, and patient/family information sessions.
The Children’s Hospital, EWMSC is a health care, teaching and research institution
dedicated to children in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
and a referral centre for children in the Caribbean
