Telemedicine Tips for Parents

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We are still open for business, and now we are “virtually” open too! We have started offering telemedicine visits for certain types of visits to help take care of our patients the best we can during this outbreak! We are finding that it is especially suited to visits such as medication checks, rashes, mental health concerns, behavioral concerns, and the like.

While there has been a few glitches, overall it has been a smooth rollout and patients and parents seem to really enjoy it and find it useful. In our first week of doing these, we have learned some valuable tips that will help your experience be as smooth as possible:

  • Before the visit, get a weight and temperature on your child

  • Use a quiet room with good lighting and avoid being backlit (having a window in the background)

  • Try to not have other siblings in the room

  • Make sure no one else in the house is using a lot of bandwidth (online gaming, etc)

  • Unmute your phone and turn the volume all the way up

  • Make sure you are not connected to wireless headphones or speakers

  • Make sure your browser has permission to access the camera and mic (this usually lives in “Settings -> [brower name]” on an iPhone or Android. A desktop/laptop browser will usually have a popup that asks permission when starting the visit, make sure you say yes

  • Internet Explorer/Edge is not supported (most other browsers are)

We are still doing well child visits in the office, especially those that require immunizations, as these are considered “essential” visits (and we haven’t figured how to give shots over telemedicine yet). We are also doing certain illness visits after screening for high risk criteria for COVID. We continue to run the office as two separate sides, separating well from sick waiting and exam rooms. Our texting to the parking lot is still in “work the kinks out” mode, so stay tuned for that.

We are proud of the new procedures we have been able to put into place to protect our patients while still providing the health care that is important for our patients. If you think you may be due for a visit, or have a question about whether your ill child needs to be seen, please call us and our staff can help decide what type of visit would be most appropriate!