The nurses at the centre, the patient s doctors, other members of the patient s medical team, and the nurses who visit the patient home, will all work together to care for the child. Before the child leaves the hospital, a nurse will teach the child s parents how to use the monitor and phone equipment. Someone from the hospital will visit the patient s home to set the equipment up. When the patient and family arrive home, a nurse at the HSC Bell Home Tele-Monitoring Centre will call to check in on the patient. It will be the parents job to hook the child up to the monitor and to tell the nurse how the child is doing.
Parents can call a nurse at the centre at any time - day or night.
The project will help to evaluate the impact of the technology on the patient and family, their quality of life and the quality of care. In addition, it will assess the impact on health care providers in the hospital and the community and cost effectiveness. If there are differences between children and families who receive Tele-HomeCare and those who solely receive visits from nurses in the community. The answers to these questions will help the team decide if Tele-HomeCare should be used with other patients and families. The research phase of the project will begin this spring and will determine the effectiveness of the service on a small, specialized patient population identified as having continuing monitoring needs post-discharge.