Telefysiek Video teleconsultation for patients with posture and movement disorders.

The video teleconsultation service is a standardized asynchronous question and answer, consultation service for health care professionals who are working with children with postural and movement disorders. Asynchronous, because this allows health care professionals to schedule their own agendas and therefore make the service easily accessible.

Video makes it possible to show the clinical movement disorders concerned, directly to the consultant regardless the distance. In addition, patient information must accompany the video fragments and be submitted using a standardized template based on protocol. This requires video handling and computer skills as well as training of the professionals in the use of the application.
Currently, the service is implemented in 7 regions throughout the Netherlands. At the moment 200 healthcare professionals, mainly pediatric physiotherapists, but also occupational and speech therapist and medical specialist, are trained and have access to the service. During the past year they have performed approximately 300 question consults and 500 answer consults.

The added value of the service is that it improves the quality of care through better cooperation and synchronizing of integrated care. Experts’ opinion from a different setting can be incorporated in treatment planning without physical referral of the patient. Therefore patients can stay in (less expensive) primary care longer with support of expert knowledge from (more expensive) secondary or tertiary care. If necessary, physical referrals can be made more effectively after the video teleconsult. Parents do not need to take of work, to visit an expert or medical specialist. The video is taped in the child’s familiar environment; therefore the child will demonstrate the movement patterns concerned. This behavior may not be demonstrated by a (young) child in the unknown environment of a specialist’s office. Yet from video, the specialist is able to observe that very specific behavior. Each teleconsult may also increase knowledge of the health care professionals and therefore have a learning effect.

This project is coordinated by: Roessingh Research & Development

Project partners within this consortium are Roessingh Centrum voor Revalidatie, Universitair Medisch Centrum Nijmegen, Sint Maartenskliniek, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Revalidatie Centrum de Trappenberg, Universitair Medisch Centrum Groningen, Rasa Solutions, AO Organisatiewerk en KPN.

For more information: www.telefysiek.nl

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