Nemours Children's Clinic, one of the largest pediatric subspecialty practices in the country, and the Jacksonville Electric District (JED), the largest community-owned utility in Florida and the 8th largest in the nation, will partner to deliver pediatric remote home monitoring services over BPL for children who have asthma. The project goals and expected outcomes include reducing complications of asthma; increasing access for underserved children; determining patient, family, and provider satisfaction with remote home monitoring and with interactive access to the online electronic medical record (EMR MyChart); testing the functionality of BPL technology for delivering remote home monitoring services; improving knowledge about asthma and quality of life; and creating and attracting health and technology related jobs to Jacksonville.
The project will provide remote home monitoring for children under the age of 18 who reside in the Springfield community of Jacksonville, Florida. This site was selected as the target location due to the large number of Nemours patients with asthma residing there, and because it is an incubator community where JED has various technology projects currently underway. Given the unique challenges within this community, the ubiquitous presence of power lines, and increasing recognition of telemedicine as an efficient method of healthcare delivery, the partners believe that success here could be easily replicated almost anywhere else within the nation.
Newly diagnosed children with asthma, and those who are experiencing difficulty with asthma management, and who are treated by Nemours, will be invited to participate in the project. These participants will be loaned remote home monitoring equipment, and given a refurbished computer or other suitable electronic device. At regularly scheduled times, or in times of distress, the patient/family member will connect the home device monitoring equipment and convey via spirometry, peak flow devices, and/or stethoscopes, the child's biologic health reading. The healthcare professional will provide feedback, additional education, and supportive counseling as interventions to guide appropriate disease management.
Patients will also visit MyChart, an Internet-available function of the Nemours electronic medical record, to record or review health information delivery, or research health information delivery. MyChart will reinforce the patients' understanding of their disease and their self-efficacy skills.
