Telemedicine

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On November 15, 2000, a team of doctors from the medical staff of St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital collaborated with the non-profit agency Medical Missions for Children, to provide treatment for a critically ill child who had been admitted into a hospital located a continent away in the capital city of Panama.  Leveraging the advancements of communications technology, this consultation took place without the need for either the patient or the doctors to travel the distance that separated the two.  Rather, through the use of state-of-the-art videoconferencing technology, doctor and patient were brought together in a real-time, fully interactive consultation resulting in a course of treatment that changed this child’s life forever.  

The success of this single event triggered the development of a concept that today has manifested itself in the creation of a worldwide medical consortium called the Global Telemedicine and Teaching Network (GTTN).  With Medical Missions for Children as its founder and St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital as it flagship partner, the GTTN has expanded to include more than 100 children’s hospitals located in such far away places as Armenia, Bolivia, China, Kazakhstan and Venezuela, and twenty-seven medical centers located here in the U.S., resulting in the diagnosis and treatment of more than 25,000 sick children.  Today, on a weekly basis, the medical staff of St. Joseph’s is volunteering their time and expertise to improve medical outcomes for critically ill children who are faced with seeking treatment in the healthcare facilities of some of the most impoverished and underserved communities in the world.

St. Joseph’s has also elected to create a telemedicine network of its own.  With over twenty-five Polycom videoconferencing units installed throughout its healthcare system, St. Joseph’s has introduced innovative ways to enhance communications between groups of physicians, nurses, patients, and affiliate hospitals, resulting in an efficient and cost-effective means of sharing information on a timely basis.  For example, the telemedicine technology now installed links the emergency departments at both St. Joseph’s hospital campuses, connects the medical center’s emergency department with area nursing homes, facilitates diagnostic and treatment evaluations at affiliated hospitals such as Hoboken University Medical Center, and enables our Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing team to diagnose and treat children using the advancements of efeed™.

Showcasing its ability to successfully integrate communications technology into the practice of medicine, St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital launched a new high definition (HD) Telemedicine Suite and an innovative medical collaboration with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee early in 2007.  While this represents the first use of an HD telemedicine installation in United States hospitals, there are no limits to how this virtual connectivity will assist children in need – across the nation and around the globe.  

“This is the first time that high definition linkage has been used between hospitals.  Our HD telemedicine program allows doctors at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to visualize clinical images and confer simultaneously, in real time, about the most difficult cases,” said Michael Lamacchia, M.D., Chairman of Pediatrics at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital.  “We’re breaking down barriers in space with this high definition application.  It represents the future of health care, enhances the extraordinary work done by pediatric specialists, and will benefit the medical staffs and patients at both institutions,” added Dr. Lamacchia. 

“This advanced high definition functionality is visually stunning.  We are using extraordinarily clear radiological imagery and pathology slides - complex 3D reconstructional images that are transmitted in the detailing fashion in which they were recorded.  HD telemedicine optimizes the ability to bring together clinicians in face-to-face dialog at two or more geographically isolated locations.  This collaborative expertise will help in the implementation of treatment protocols to save the lives of many children,” said James Cavanagh, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at
St. Joseph’s Healthcare System.

According to Mr. Cavanagh, “While this hi-def implementation is focused on two hospital end-points, there is nothing that limits connectivity.  The network design will allow these units to connect virtually anywhere and are even backward-compatible with traditional teleconferencing equipment.  The connectivity between the sites is based on Internet Protocol (IP), thus utilizing infrastructure already in place to support the data networking needs of both St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital while adding no additional cost.” 

“High Definition Telemedicine takes St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital to a whole new level of distinction and a collaboration in care for what’s important to all of us – our children,” stated William A. McDonald, President and Chief Executive Officer of
St. Joseph’s Healthcare System.

The Telemedicine Suite that links St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Paterson, New Jersey with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee was made possible by contributions of technology from Polycom, Inc., and Medical Missions for Children.  The donation included state-of-the-art high definition cameras, plasma displays, control units, audio equipment, “People+Content” software and a full range of connectivity technologies.
Now one of the most technologically-advanced medical facilities in the world, St. Joseph’s utilizes telemedicine to benefit patients and enhance health care throughout the country and across the globe.