For students, particularly students in lower-income areas, asthma is one of the leading causes of school absences according to data from CDC. Since 2006, the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) has worked with the Rochester City School District to try to improve asthma care for students. For close to a dozen years, URMC has been bringing telemedicine to city schools to allow offsite doctors to make quick diagnoses of sick students.
With a recent $3.6 million grant from NIH, researchers are now hoping to reduce both student absences and preventable visits to doctor’s office and emergency rooms while creating a telemedicine-centric asthma treatment program that can be replicated in communities elsewhere. However, the telemedicine program is not a substitute for a visit to a primary care physician.
“This is all about prevention,” said Dr. Jill Halterman, Professor of Pediatrics at URMC and the study’s Principal Investigator. “Asthma is one of the most common chronic disorders of childhood and also a very high cost disorder, since parents miss a lot of work because of their child’s asthma. Also, there are a lot of healthcare costs associated with asthma because of emergency visits.”
The current telemedicine system operates by having a telehealth assistant examine a student summoned to the nurse’s office in their school. The student is asked to open their mouth so a few photos can be taken. Then the student takes a few deep breaths while a digital stethoscope is held on the student’s back. The photos and stethoscope readings are uploaded to an online database where the doctor can open the file and listen to all of the lung sounds.
Depending on what the doctor reports, the student may be required to take daily asthma medications or continue their present medication regimen. It is hoped that with regular reminders, they will also remember to take their medications at home.
Six weeks later, the student has a follow-up visit from the telehealth assistant who again will check their breathing and send their readings to offsite doctors who will determine if the medications are working.
Right now, telemedicine asthma visits aren’t covered by insurance but if researchers can prove that telemedicine visits decrease absences, emergency room stays, and other costly repercussions caused by asthma attacks, then the hope is that insurance companies will begin to pay.