Too often, children who have to be hospitalized over the holiday season miss out on the chance to leave cookies for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and awake bright and early on Christmas morning to see gifts under the tree.
This gave hospital staff at Shriners Hospital for Children an idea. The hospital wanted to test out its new telecommunications plan earlier this December, and instead of testing with random patients and employees, the staff created a plan for children to test out the system by video chatting with Santa.
The test run was implemented in Salt Lake City, Philadelphia and Galveston, Texas, for hospitals looking to participate in a doctor-patient video conferencing pilot program beginning in 2016. Shriners partnered with Dimension Data to test the telemedicine program for its orthopedic and neuromusculoskeletal specialists, according to hospital administrator Kevin Martin, with equipment donated by Cisco.
Two-year-old Westin Kobryn is small for his age, doesn’t speak and struggles walking. Santa’s virtual visit helped Westin have a childhood experience he may not have enjoyed otherwise, says his mother Sarah Kobryn.
“Having Santa on the TV was a good thing,” she says. “I think he would have gotten a little freaked out if he would’ve sat on Santa’s lap.”
Telemedicine is great for cheering up sick children around the holidays, but it can be an even larger help to the hospital as a whole, integrating secure, high-quality video chat with medical records accessable in devices on both ends of the chat.
“Telemedicine is taking video conferences to the next level with an eye specifically toward enhancing the doctor-patient experience,” says Chris Driggers, a Dimension Data systems engineer.
Video conferencing can also cut down on transportation costs for patients, explains Martin, adding, “the Shriners usually pay for the kids and a parent to come for an appointment, so they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on transportation costs.”
Polycom is also bringing Santa Claus to children’s hospitals as part of its Polycom Gives campaign using the RealPresence platform.
#Santa uses #Polycom #RealPresence #Mobile to speak with children’s hospitals around the country #PolycomGives pic.twitter.com/wH7x8ds1gW
— Polycom (@Polycom) December 10, 2015
