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Acute medical review by mobile telemedicine for children in hospital-in-the-home: an innovation
  1. Penelope A Bryant1,2,3,4,
  2. Laila F Ibrahim1,
  3. Bronwyn Sacks1,
  4. Daniel Golshevsky1,
  5. Mark Spagnolo1,
  6. Michael Layley1,
  7. Kate A Hodgson1,
  8. Doug Bryan1
  1. 1 RCH@Home Department, The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
  2. 2 Infectious Diseases Unit, Department of General Medicine, The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
  3. 3 Murdoch Children's Research Institute, The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
  4. 4 Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Penelope Bryant, Department of General Medicine, Royal Children's Hospital, Flemington Road, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia; penelope.bryant{at}rch.org.au

https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2014-307540

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    Where treatment allows, children do better at home than in hospital.1 The Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) Melbourne has a hospital-in-the-home (HITH) programme that provides acute medical care to children at home (eg, intravenous antibiotics for cellulitis, pneumonia). However, there is a risk of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for clinicians.2 We aimed to increase the visibility of children treated at home by piloting mobile telemedicine for patients on HITH. Objectives were to assess the acceptability and feasibility of acute medical review by telemedicine and to explore the technology's uses.

    We undertook a prospective pilot study from February to June 2013. Several hardware solutions were assessed for weight, data transfer method, videoconferencing specifics, compatibility with departmental software and price. The Acer Iconia tablet was selected, …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors PAB: conceptualised and designed the study, drafted the initial manuscript and approved the final manuscript as submitted. LFI, BS, DG, KAH, MS and ML: collected the data, critically reviewed the manuscript and approved the final manuscript as submitted. DB: conceptualised the study, critically reviewed the manuscript and approved the final manuscript as submitted.

    • Competing interests None.

    • Ethics approval RCH Human Research Ethics Committee.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.