WMCHealth debuts eNeonatology service
Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth) has introduced an eNeonatology service between the HealthAlliance Hospital: Broadway Campus in Kingston and the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Maria Fareri Children”™s Hospital in Valhalla.
The service, which is being promoted as the first neonatal telemedicine offering in Ulster and Dutchess counties, is designed to allow the HealthAlliance Hospital to reduce the need for transferring newborn babies to neonatal intensive care units if the level of required can be addressed by remote support from the Valhalla-based neonatologists.
The eNeonatology program is the telemedicine service from WMCHealth, which also provides eICU, ePsychiatry, eTrauma, eStroke, STAT mobile ICU and eDermatology offerings.
“Measures taken in the first hour after birth, known as the ”˜golden hour,”™ will define a patient”™s course in the first several weeks after birth,” said Edmund LaGamma, chief of newborn medicine and director of the Regional Neonatal Center at Maria Fareri Children”™s Hospital.
“It is critical that advanced neonatal care is available immediately for neonates who require it in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. Our new eNeonatology program is an extra layer of support ”“ not a replacement ”“ for the expert doctors, midwives and other clinicians at HealthAlliance Hospital who care for babies in Kingston.”