Tropes

futurity_medicine 00388.txt

#Telehealth consults improve child abuse exams Telehealth consultations for clinicians at rural hospitals improve their ability to provide forensic examinations for sexual abuse, according to new research. Published in the journal Child abuse & Neglect, the study shows that clinicians with access to expert nurses provided more thorough and nuanced exams, improving their ability to gather evidence and to make an accurate diagnosis. roviding telehealth support really improves the quality of these forensic exams, says first author Sheridan Miyamoto, a forensic nurse practitioner and research nurse at the Betty Irene Moore School of nursing at University of California, Davis."The assumption that hospital nurse staffing can be reduced to save money, without adversely affecting patient outcomes, may be foolish at best and fatal at worst,"says Anne Marie Rafferty. Credit: istockphoto) University of Southampton Nurse staffing, education tied to hospital death rate ith this technology, we can help children who might otherwise not receive this level of care. Provided by advanced practice nurse practitioners and sexual assault nurse examiners with more than 10 years of experience evaluating abuse, telehealth consults offer tremendous benefits for rural communities. In addition to improving quality, they ease the burden on families, who no longer need to travel many hours for expert care, and clinicians, who have access to trained mentors when conducting these delicate exams. As a result, these consults provide a safety net for clinicians patients, and parents, ensuring these procedures are both thorough and accurate. t important that we get this right, says Miyamoto. ue to a lack of experience and regular exposure, many examiners are prone to assess normal variations as injuries from trauma. n the other hand, we also want to protect the child. Strong evidence may result in a plea bargain, eliminating the added stress for children of having to testify in court. Telehealth offers support and built-in peer review for nurses, physicians, and other clinicians practicing in relative isolation. The telehealth network uses secure teleconferencing equipment to link UC Davis nurses with rural clinicians. The systems provide video and audio as well as images from colposcopes (magnifying devices used to examine genitalia) and other equipment. This advanced technology essentially puts expert nurses in the room with examining clinicians. TELEHEALTH NETWORK To test whether telehealth improved care, the researchers brought in independent experts to review examinations from eight rural hospitals, five of which had access to telehealth consults. The experts reviewed the health records for 183 patients, 101 of whom were treated at telehealth hospitals, evaluating the thoroughness, accuracy, and overall quality of these exams. The telehealth exams improved care in multiple areas, including examination findings, overall assessments completeness, and diagnostic accuracy. In addition, photo and video quality improved dramatically, evidence that could enhance court proceedings. Overall quality, completeness, and accuracy scores were all significantly higher in the telehealth hospitals. The team hopes these findings will spur other hospitals to expand their telehealth capabilities. f we create a statewide network, we can really improve the quality of these exams in rural communities, says Miyamoto. e can provide a service for many children who don receive this level of care and make sure issues that should be investigated are investigated. Additional researchers contributed from UC Davis Mark twain Medical center, Northern Nevada Medical center, and the California Department of public health Material, Child & Adolescent Health Program. The Maternal and Child Health Bureau of Health Resources and Services Administration and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation supported the work F

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