‘TV doctors’: Hospital tries care via video screen

In a rural corner of P.E.I., a small hospital is trying a firstin-Canada approach to delivering care that could offer a solution to doctor shortages across the country.

Instead of a doctor doing hospital rounds in person, a nurse rolls in a TV cart with the physician on a video screen from an office elsewhere in the province or the country.

Western Hospital in Alberton, P.E.I., has undertaken a six-month pilot “tele-rounding” project — doctors treating patients via a secure video conference link. They can check on patients, review their files, order tests and even use a digital, bluetooth-enabled stethoscope applied by a nurse while a doctor listens remotely.

“There are no doctors on the floor there, but there are nursing staff and lab technicians. The nurse takes the cart from patient to patient, and we’re essentially doing hospital rounds technologically enabled and we’re providing physician care,” said Dr. Brett Belchetz, an emergency department physician and CEO of Maple — the Toronto company providing the tele-rounding service.

Western Hospital approached Maple, which has a tele-medicine app used across Canada that gives people access to a doctor. Hospital officials hoped they could use the technology for their patients who didn’t have a family doctor.

Now, Maple hopes that if the P.E.I. pilot is successful, they could use it elsewhere.

“There are doctors with excess capacity, and we’re allowing them to use that excess capacity to keep a rural hospital open,” Belchetz said.

“If you look at the Stats Canada numbers, only about 50 per cent of Canadian doctors work fully all year despite the great need we have for more care.”

Some 6.6 per cent of Canadians reported being unable to find a family doctor in 2010.