Intermountain NICU Gets Makeover with VSee Simple Telemedicine

At the recent American Telemedicine Association (ATA) conference in Austin, TX, Intermountain Healthcare demo-ed their innovative use of VSee for a tele-neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Key to their setup was VSee’s ability to simultaneously send multiple camera video streams.  Legacy video conference systems such as Vidyo, Polycom, and Cisco can only send 1 camera feed at a time.

Dr. Stephen Minton, Intermountain neonatologist and director of newborn services, gave a talk at ATA and showcased several powerful medical work flows for VSee NICU that he helped design.  Intermountain’s 60-bed NICU renovation powered by VSee will be in operation in 3-4 months.

Intermountain NICU 3 views

3 simultaneous video streams from the isolette

 

Dr. Minton Neonatal telemedicine demo

Dr. Minton, the remote specialist

 

VSee telehealth NICU demo

Doctor being directed in the resuscitation procedure

Three HD webcams are mounted on the isolette (for medical procedures) or warmer (holding crib) to show the baby from different angles and one webcam is aimed at the nurse/doctor for communicating with the remote neonatologist. The webcams are connected to a Mac mini and the entire setup is positioned such as to not take up space from working doctors and nurses.

isolette neonatal care

Isolette setup using 3 Logitech 920 webcams, a Mac mini, & VSee

For high-risk babies that need specialist care, such as a resuscitation procedure, it’s no longer necessary to do a costly, time-consuming transfer from a local hospital to the hospital where the neonatologist is located.  Instead, a neonatologist like Dr. Minton can easily extend his care to another hospital via VSee in a matter of seconds. Through live video streams coming from the different webcams, a seasoned specialist can direct a less experienced doctor in the procedure.

For anxious parents, the VSee telemedicine NICU can now offer them around the clock access to their infants. Parents often feel like they don’t have enough time to see their little ones during their NICU visits. Using VSee, parents and families can call in anytime to see their babies.  They can even hold the iPad in their arms as though they are holding their babies and sleep with them in bed.

Finally, for busy doctors, These NICU beds can be set to auto-receive calls securely only from them so they can check in on a little patient at any time.

Learn more about VSee simple telehealth here.

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