Pediatric Hospital Combines Urgent Care Services with Telehealth
A recent effort from Seattle Children’s involved implementing virtual urgent care services to treat various conditions, including coughs and colds.
To expand healthcare access throughout Washington state, Seattle Children's has added the option of virtual care services to treat urgent care symptoms such as allergies, colds, coughs, eye infections, and others.
Seattle Children’s aims to provide patients with effective care through nearly 60 pediatric subspecialties, including surgical, rehabilitative, and behavioral health services.
The organization recently announced the addition of telehealth for urgent care services to its care delivery model. Known as Virtual Urgent Care, Washington state patients living in Seattle, Federal Way, Everett, and Bellevue locations will have access to services. This service aims to help to mitigate challenges related to high patient volumes.
The new virtual program gives patients experiencing symptoms such as cold, flu, lice, bite, sore throat, and other symptoms the option to remain in their homes while communicating with providers through digital devices.
Offered Monday through Friday between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Virtual Urgent Care appointments are accessible through devices with internet capabilities, such as computers and tablets. However, a requirement for service participation is that patients must be in the state of Washington during the visit and have a legal guardian with them. Further, participants will have access to interpreter services.
Like this effort, various previous projects have aimed to support care for pediatric patients virtually.
For example, in May 2022, Boston Children's announced its plans to work in collaboration with Summus Global to deploy virtual pediatric care strategies, extending access to specialists.
Specifically, the collaboration involves Summus Global working with the innovation team and physician faculty at Boston Children's Hospital. Through this process, they will work to create strategies for improving virtual care and specialist access.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth proved helpful in expanding healthcare access for pediatric patients.
A study published last March found that telehealth helped pediatric type 1 diabetes patients maintain care during the pandemic.
Researchers collected patient data from the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas. This included data from 2019 (pre-COVID-19) and 2020 (post-COVID-19). They found that among pediatric type 1 diabetics with commercial insurance, outpatient visits decreased. They also observed that older patients, patients who were Black and Hispanic, those with non-commercial insurance, and those who did not use continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) had higher hemoglobin A1c levels. Further, between 2019 and 2020, the use of CGMs increased among non-commercial insurance members.
Researchers concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic highly affected glycemic control among diabetic patients. Also, telehealth and CGMs led to increased parental oversight, resulting in a steadier care rate and a higher likelihood of a lower hospitalization rate.