For more information, contact Community Relations at:
10/16/2020
Wentworth-Douglass Hospital has added a TeleNewborn Consult Program in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital to complement its comprehensive services for babies born at the Wentworth-Douglass Hospital Women & Children’s Center. With more than 1,300 deliveries every year, this new program will help certain babies stay with their family and be treated at Wentworth-Douglass, under the close watch of neonatology experts at Massachusetts General Hospital and Wentworth-Douglass clinical staff.
The TeleNewborn Consult Program is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and allows Wentworth-Douglass providers to communicate vital signs and conduct an exam of a newborn while consulting virtually with a neonatology expert at Mass General who can assist with the decision to transport if a baby needs a higher level of care. Neonatology experts at Mass General can also provide stabilization advice while preparing for transport. Wentworth-Douglass Hospital is thrilled to make this new technology accessible to its youngest patients.
Chief Nursing Officer, Sheila Woolley, RN, BSN, MPH says "This TeleNewborn Consult Program is a wonderful opportunity to care for premature newborns at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital that would normally be transferred to a different level of care. We’ll be able to keep those babies with their families in their community, which is so important for everybody. As you can imagine, it’s extremely difficult and incredibly emotional being separated from your brand-new baby. This program will allow us to maintain family centered care, which is so important."
Associate Chief, Division of Neonatology and Newborn Medicine and Medical Director, Neonatology at MassGeneral Hospital for Children, Sergei Roumiantsev, MD, PhD, “With more than 1,300 women choosing to deliver their babies at Wentworth-Douglass annually, we know a portion of them will need advanced specialty care in those first critical hours and days of life. Thanks to this new partnership, newborns and their families have a greater chance of receiving care from providers they know in the community they call home.”
The addition of the TeleNewborn Consult program adds to Wentworth-Douglass Hospital’s clinical affiliations with Massachusetts General Hospital, which also include TeleHealth services in the disciplines of TeleStroke and Acute TeleNeurology. Other clinical affiliations include gynecologic oncology, cancer genetics, thoracic surgery, epilepsy, cardiac arrythmia/electrophysiology, neuropsychology and neuropathy.
The TeleNewborn Consult Program was generously funded through the Wentworth-Douglass Foundation thanks to funds raised through the annual Wentworth-Douglass Charity Classic golf tournament.