Telemedicine Program

Telemedicine is the clinical application of providing care at a distance. It includes a growing variety of applications and services utilizing two-way video, e-mail, and other forms of telecommunications technology. Beginning over forty years ago with demonstrations of hospitals extending care to patients in remote areas, the use of telemedicine has grown rapidly and is now becoming integrated into the ongoing operations of hospitals, specialty departments, and home care organizations.

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC is leading the way in the development of telemedicine services to meet the needs of young patients regionally and around the world.  Our state-of-the-art digital technologies allow us to provide complex pediatric care through remote and virtual means wherever our expertise is needed at any time of the day or night.

Program Types

Our Telemedicine Program utilizes video conferencing and store-and-forward technologies to ensure that urgent, emergent, and scheduled outpatient needs are consistently met. 

• Video conferencing uses telecommunications of audio and video to bring people at different sites together for clinical consultations or encounters. Current video conferencing services include:
  • e-Intensive Care Unit
  • Tele-ED 
  • Tele-NICU
  • Tele-Education

• Store-and-forward is a telecommunications technique in which information is sent to an intermediate station where it is kept and sent at a later time to the final destination or to another intermediate station.  E-mail, for example, is a store-and-forward technology. Current store-and-forward services include: 
  • Tele-Dermatology

New Program Development

• pediatric cardiology
• pediatric radiology
• pediatric pathology
• pediatric general and thoracic surgery
• others to be named

Memberships

Children’s is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics section on telehealth and is an institutional member of the American Telemedicine Association to help set the standard for the delivery of pediatric specialty care around the globe.