image: Jeff Vergales, MD, is a pediatric cardiologist at UVA Children's. view more
Credit: UVA Health
Two UVA Children's experts will make presentations Saturday at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition on a breakthrough home monitoring program for children with complex health needs using an iPad app.
To enable children with serious medical conditions to go home sooner, a UVA Children's Hospital team worked with Locus Health to develop Building HOPE, an iPad app to enhance follow-up care and communication between families and their care team. Families send information about the child's vital signs and other health information through the secure Locus Health app to UVA, where care providers monitor the child's health in real time. In addition, the information is automatically entered into the patient's electronic health record.
Saturday's conference presentations will highlight two different uses of the Building HOPE app:
UVA neonatologist Brooke Vergales, MD, will present results from a pilot home monitoring program for premature infants who had been cared for in UVA neonatal intensive care unit. She will discuss the program's impact on length of stay along with how well infants in the home monitoring program gained weight compared with infants that remained longer in the NICU.
UVA pediatric cardiologist Jeff Vergales, MD, will present results from a home monitoring program for infants born with serious congenital heart defects. He will discuss how the program affected length of stay along with the amount of time infants needed to use feeding tubes.
UVA Children's is expanding the home monitoring program to help care for children undergoing chemotherapy, children who have received an organ transplant and children with cystic fibrosis.
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