iPads Are Crucial Health Care Tools in Combating Covid-19
“The hearing impaired find the device extremely helpful and it provides a lot of confidence and comfort,” said Wren Lester, chief experience officer and director of patient relations at Downstate Medical Center. Lester says the hospital hopes to expand the program after the crisis.
Downstate isn’t currently using the technology to provide inpatient virtual care, like Mass General and others. The intensity of NYC’s coronavirus crisis has left staff little time to create such a system. “The numbers have been growing so quickly that we have to change [core aspects of our] process quite regularly just to deal with the surge of patients and manage the crisis,” said chief information officer Michele Scaggiante.
Staff at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, home to the city’s first dedicated Covid-19 treatment unit, initially turned to tablets and smartphones to help connect patients with their loved ones after local officials banned most hospital visitors on March 14. Since then, the devices have been adopted for other uses throughout the hospital, says Dr. Kathleen Jordan, vice president of the hospital.
“We were dealing recently with an end-of-life situation and had actually quite a beautiful experience with extended family from multiple locations being able to be present in a virtual way,” recalls Jordan. It was the first time the hospital had used such technology with such a large audience and in an end-of-life experience, she says.
Doctors at Saint Francis use the devices to check on patients in the hospital. There are, of course, still many tests and procedures that must be done in person, but for those that can be conducted remotely, many clinicians are finding virtual appointments provide them with the opportunity for greater intimacy with patients, Jordan says.
At most hospitals, Covid-19 patients see few other people, all of them cloaked in masks, goggles, and gloves. “It’s a very frightening experience,” says Schwamm of Mass General. “With the iPad device in place, they get to interact verbally and in a reassuring way with a nurse who they can’t touch, but whose facial expressions they can now see.”
The adoption of inpatient telemedicine has also helped with staffing, by allowing more providers to participate in care, says Jordan, at Saint Francis. Immunocompromised and other at-risk providers who had been kept away from patients to protect themselves can now weigh in remotely. Doctors who feel healthy but are quarantined because of Covid-19 exposures are also now able to contribute, Jordan says, which has helped the hospital avoid dire personnel shortages.
In preparation for the influx of patients, Saint Francis set up a surge area to act as an extension of the hospital’s emergency room. The surge facility isn’t located in the same area as the ER, but ER physicians will be able to lead remote visits and consultations for the surge facility without having to leave their posts.
“People have this idea that remote work is not really for clinicians, and I think this is showing us otherwise,” says Juan Estrada who oversees Virtual Consults Services at Mass General. He’s spent years trying to get the tech into the hands of health care providers, but until recently says he met largely with resistance.
“Change is difficult in medicine. Historically, telehealth has been an exercise in pushing so that people begin to see how technology can make a difference,” says Estrada. “These last three weeks, we are not really pushing. We are being pulled. This huge community of providers is clamoring for these solutions now. It’s amazing.”
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