Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) has debuted virtual urgent care, available to children and youth up to age 21 who require after-hours care for non-emergency illnesses or injuries.
The service pairs patients with CHLA providers through video conferencing from computers, tablets, and smartphones.
Virtual Urgent Care treats non-emergency illnesses and injuries, including fever, upper respiratory infections, vomiting, minor eye problems, allergies, and minor injuries such as bruises and scrapes.
Telehealth service providers provide discharge instructions, route prescriptions to pharmacies, and, if needed, let patients and families know where and how to receive continued care.
”Children's Hospital Los Angeles is constantly working to introduce practical and innovative solutions to improve the experience and access to care for our patients and families. „Thanks to CHLA's new virtual urgent care service, families across California can now receive world-class care from physicians at the West Coast's top-ranked children's hospitals from the comfort of their own homes,“ said CHLA's Director of Transformation and Digital. said Omkar Kulkarni. Children's Hospital Los Angeles said in a statement:
bigger trends
by Ministry of Health and Human ServicesTelehealth visits have increased by 154% during the COVID-19 pandemic and account for 30.2% of all medical visits.
Another study by patient experience journal, virtual emergency visits reduced visit times from an average of 70 minutes to 9 minutes. The same study also showed that virtual visits have an average cost savings of $90 compared to in-person urgent care visits.
Children's Hospital Los Angeles is the largest provider of hospital care for children in California.
In February, the hospital received $6 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to develop innovative stem cell approaches to treat children and adolescents with recurrent solid tumors. The research aims to reprogram patients' immune cells to target cancer cells through genetic changes in the tumor.
That same month, CHLA announced the Fetal Heart Care Clinic to treat pregnant women and fetal patients with congenital heart defects and heart disease before birth. The clinic offers advanced imaging technologies such as 4D imaging and fetal cardiac MRI.
Competitors in the virtual emergency care space include Wyoming-based TelMDFirst and healthcare giant CVS Health's. minute clinic.