Telehealth

As technology has advanced, the ways health care can be provided have changed and advanced too. At LVHN, thousands of patients are benefiting from secure telehealth technology that allows them to access and receive quality, specialized care conveniently. LVHN Telehealth services include:

Advanced Intensive Care Unit (AICU)

The AICU is at an off-site location for monitoring patients receiving care in LVHN intensive care units (ICU). Patients are monitored every night by a team that includes an intensivist physician and critical care nurses. The program has shown significant reduction in mortality, significantly fewer days of mechanical ventilation and a decreased length of ICU stay.

BabyCam

BabyCam utilizes a webcam at each neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) bed at Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital to allow parents and other parent-approved individuals (such as family members) to view the baby through a secure internet connection. BabyCam is provided at NICUs at Lehigh Valley Hospital (LVH)–Cedar Crest and LVH–Muhlenberg.

Care Transition Team

The care transition team consists of care managers and pre-engagement specialists who call patients within one to two days after being discharged from the hospital to ensure transitions are smooth. Post-discharge phone calls involve scheduling follow-up appointments, review of discharge instructions, and medication reconciliation and referrals to Continuous Ambulatory Remote Engagement Services (CARES). This service is now available to COVID-19 patients as well, allowing them to recover at home with added peace of mind.

CARES Remote Patient Monitoring

Continuous Ambulatory Remote Engagement Services (CARES) provides patients a customized kit that includes tools to record blood oxygen levels and temperature. That information is submitted to LVHN and reviewed by a nurse on the LVHN CARES team. If needed, the nurse will reach out to discuss a patient's condition or provide the information to a physician for further review. The nursing team also provides coaching and reinforcement of educational topics such as medication adherence, diet, activity and the importance of daily testing.

Dermatology

Utilizing digital images, inpatients who require a dermatology consult can be seen virtually within 24 hours by a dermatologist. This eliminates the need for the patient to be transferred to the LVH–Cedar Crest campus for the same evaluation.

Diabetic Retinopathy

This service leads to early detection of diabetic retinopathy. Patients who have not seen an ophthalmologist for routine eye exams are offered to have a retinal scan completed during a routine primary care or endocrinology visit. The images are evaluated by an LVHN ophthalmologist/optometrist and recommendations are given based on the results. 

Emergency Department Triage

Using real-time, secure videoconferencing technologies, providers and nurses virtually initiate and expedite care for patients entering any LVHN emergency department (ED) for care.

Inpatient Consultations in Infectious Diseases, Neurology, Cardiology and Pulmonology

High-definition videoconferencing equipment and electronic medical instruments allow a specialist to complete real-time inpatient consultations at a remote hospital.

Interpreter Services

Real-time, secure videoconferencing technologies are used to facilitate the delivery of live medical interpretation services across the span of multiple languages, including but not limited to American Sign Language, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic and more.

LVHN@Home

LVHN@Home combines home nurse visits, virtual physician visits and enhanced remote monitoring to help more patients recover at home. If you come to the emergency room, physicians will determine next steps in care. If hospital services aren’t needed, but you require care and enhanced monitoring, that can now be done from the comfort of your own home through LVHN@Home, saving you the costs associated with a hospital stay. This service is offered for people recovering from a variety of illnesses including COVID-19. 

Patients who participate receive a customized kit that includes items like a pulse oximeter, blood pressure cuff and thermometer, all with the technology to automatically submit data to LVHN. Patients use these items twice a day. Nurses review each patient’s data and can identify issues to prevent hospitalizations. A Lehigh Valley Home Care nurse either comes to the patient’s house or meets with the patient virtually each day. Patients also have access to speak with a nurse anytime, day or night. 

LVHN@Home is available to people who live in Lehigh or Northampton counties as well as certain areas in Berks and Carbon counties. 

LVHN TeleBurn℠

Utilizing digital imaging and mobile devices, LVHN burn specialists assess and triage burn injuries from more than 100 LVHN and non-LVHN emergency departments and urgent care centers. 

Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) Genetic Counseling

This telehealth service enables providers to deliver efficient MFM genetic counseling to patients using real-time, secure videoconferencing technologies. 

Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) Ultrasound

Lehigh Valley Physician Group MFM specialists deliver efficient interpretation of OB and GYN ultrasounds that are conducted at facilities throughout the Lehigh Valley region.

Neonatal Intensive Care

Providers in the Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest neonatal intensive care unit use high-definition videoconferencing equipment and electronic medical instruments to consult with regional hospitals in real time to assess neonates, recommend treatment and arrange for transport of the patient, if necessary.

Observation

To expand access to care, providers virtually round on patients admitted to an observation unit utilizing secure videoconferencing technologies.

Oncology Genetic Counseling

Genetic counselors in Lehigh Valley Topper Cancer Institute deliver genetic counseling to patients using real-time, secure videoconferencing technologies.

Palliative Medicine

A palliative medicine specialist provides real-time consultations using secure video conferencing technologies to patients in LVHN intensive care units. The palliative medicine team also uses similar technologies to provide check-in visits with patients in their residence.

Parkinson’s Disease

This telehealth service allows a neurologist to follow up on their patients remotely and eliminates transport from nursing homes to the LVPG neurologist for an in-person visit.

Psychiatric Evaluations

Providers deliver efficient emergency psychiatric assessment, treatment and hospital admission using real-time, secure video conferencing technologies to several hospital emergency departments.

Radiology, Neurology, Stroke, Trauma Imaging

Digital imaging studies can be transferred between referring hospitals and LVHN. This results in fewer rescans and more efficient delivery of care.

Rehabilitation, Home Safety Evaluations

The LVHN rehabilitation therapy team uses secure videoconferencing technologies to conduct virtual home safety evaluations for patients. 

Stroke

This service connects an on-call stroke neurologist at LVHN’s Comprehensive Stroke Center to regional hospitals in real time, using high-definition videoconferencing and radiology systems for the assessment and treatment of stroke cases. This includes making arrangements to transport a patient if a higher level of care is needed.

Toxicology

Lehigh Valley Physician Group toxicologists remotely provide advice to regional emergency departments that is specific to critical care of the poisoned patient, management of withdrawal syndromes, antidotal therapy, decontamination, recommended laboratory testing and diagnostics, drug identification and interactions, envenomations, drug elimination techniques, observation/disposition strategies, and disaster response to mass poisonings and chemical exposures.

Video Monitoring

Using a live video feed, a trained staff member watches up to 15 patients who are at high risk for falling or harming themselves. This staff member communicates with the patient when at-risk behaviors are noted and until a staff member from the unit can get into the patient’s room quickly to assist.

Video Visits, Behavioral Health

Secure videoconferencing technologies via the MyLVHN app are used for scheduled behavioral health therapy follow-up visits for adult and pediatric patients, affording patients the convenience of completing the visit from the privacy of their residence.

Video Visits, ExpressCARE

ExpressCARE video visits allow consumers to schedule an online appointment with a provider on-demand service. An LVHN provider uses secure videoconferencing technologies to provide virtual visits with patients through MyLVHN. Consumers always connect with an LVHN provider.

Video Visits, Post Operation

This telehealth service allows the surgical team to use secure videoconferencing technologies to provide and facilitate follow-up visits with post-operative patients from the patient’s residence via the MyLVHN app. 

Virtual Inpatient Check-In and Checkout (VICC) Program

This program allows LVHN providers who are not currently in the hospital to use secure videoconferencing technologies to check in with their patients or to facilitate a patient discharge (checkout).

Virtual Office Visits

Scheduled office visits are conducted by Lehigh Valley Physician Group general, bariatric and urology groups using secure videoconferencing technologies via the MyLVHN app. Services include the completion of pre-procedure screening and kidney stone follow-up visits.

Wound

Utilizing digital imaging technologies, patients receive more timely care planning and wound management by a member of the LVHN inpatient wound ostomy and continence nurse specialty team.