A child has been diagnosed with cancer. He needs months of chemotherapy. Time and again, the family has to take the child to the hospital, often even several times a week. For many affected families, this means hours-long car rides, waiting times, and a daily routine that revolves entirely around the illness. But in the future, some of these appointments could take place from the comfort of their own living room with the help of telemedicine.
Video consultations instead of hospital visits
A study by the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, initiated by Prof. Denis Schewe, shows that this can work. Today, he heads the Pediatric Oncology Center at NCT/UCC Dresden. In the study, doctors replaced some of the follow-up appointments with video consultations. Fifty-five children and adolescents who were receiving particularly intensive chemotherapy for cancer participated. The doctors simply met with the young patients and their parents via computer and spoke with them via video chat.
The evaluation showed that the video consultations were just as safe as in-person care at the hospital. The number of complications did not increase. At the same time, the families collectively saved 337 hospital visits and approximately 42,000 kilometers of travel.
