Telemedicine Care Another Advancement at The Medical Center

By Joseph R. Zanga, M.D. | Chief of Pediatrics | The Medical Center

Dr. Joseph R. Zanga

Columbus Regional is developing a Women and Children’s Center on its campus to house not only the region’s most advanced Labor and Delivery Service and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, but also the most advanced Inpatient and Pediatric Critical Care Units (PCCU) for older children and adolescents.

One example of the continuation of that advanced care is the soon-to-come online Telemedicine Care system. This state of-the-art technology will allow pediatric specialists in Augusta and Atlanta to see patients here in Columbus in real time, view vital sign monitors, ventilator settings, imaging studies, laboratory findings, skin color/lesions, the inside of the eyes and ears, and other items, in high resolution. It will allow them to talk with the patient (if appropriate), listen to heart, lung and abdominal sounds, and perhaps in the not-too-distant future, even “feel” necessary parts of the child as if they were here at The Medical Center, in order to assist us in care.

Beyond that, it will also allow specialists on our staff to offer patient consultations to physicians in distant communities. Both are major advances from the long and scary ambulance ride to an unfamiliar hospital in a far away place.