A Phone Call Away
Telemedicine becomes a pandemic success story
by Jessica Gregg
A nother way that the coronavirus has changed our world ? Telemedicine.

Prior to this year, most of us had never been on a video call with our physicians. But with stay-at-home
orders and limited patient hours at many physician practices this spring, parents experienced Zoom or Skype
appointments with obstetricians, pediatricians and other doctors.

At Baltimore’s Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital, psy-
chologists found telemedicine to be a valuable tool. It’s one
they had long hoped to use for counseling sessions, says
Dr. Kenneth Gelfand, the hospital’s psychology manager.

The hospital sees young patients from all over the state with
a variety of medical issues, including feeding disorders, autism
and long-term medical conditions. Its counseling staff con-
ducts about 25,000 patient visits each year.

For families with transportation issues or children who
are immunocompromised, for example, the hospital’s
practitioners had long hoped to serve patients through telep-
sychology. It was something for which his team had advocated
40 Washington FAMILY JULY 2020
for years, Gelfand says. When staff had to shift gears in mid-
March because of the pandemic, the chance to try telemedicine
reinforced the ways it could be useful.

“For a lot of families, this really has created an equivalent
level of care,” Gelfand says.

Many of the hospital’s teenaged patients had an “increased
interest” in their appointments, because they didn’t have to
take the time from busy schedules to come in for appoint-
ments, he says. For patients with anxiety, counselors were
often able to talk with them as the anxiety was happening and
give them in-home strategies for coping and alleviating it.

Visits were conducted by Zoom, and with small children,