Tele-echocardiography is a life-saving technology for infants with congenital heart disease.
Developed in the 1990s at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, telemedicine today enables pediatric cardiologists to view and interpret echocardiograms performed on patients at other hospitals. Infants with serious congenital heart disease can be diagnosed quickly and cared for immediately. This technology is also very effective in defining cases of mild heart disease, which can often be cared for locally.
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Before tele-echocardiography, babies may have been transported to another hospital for diagnosis, or their discharge may have been delayed while waiting for an echocardiogram to be interpreted. In addition, diagnosis is faster, improving the infant's chances and decreasing parental fears if the child's heart is normal. Unnecessary costly transports and prolonged hospital stays also are avoided.
Our tele-echocardiography technology helped launch similar programs both in the United States and internationally. With sonographer training and real-time interaction between the sonographer and the hub hospital pediatric cardiologist, congenital heart disease can be diagnosed or ruled out. Since the distance between "hub" and "spoke" hospitals is irrelevant, telemedicine technology has the potential to become an important solution in diagnosing of congenital heart disease in remote area without access to pediatric cardiology expertise. Using this simple technology, outcomes for patients with congenital heart disease may be significantly improved around the globe.