COVID-19 Pandemic Restrictions and the Use of Technology for Pediatric Palliative Care in the Acute Care Setting
Infant; Female; Humans; Parents; Intensive Care Units Pediatric; Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing; Terminally Ill; Palliative Care; Videoconferencing; Infection Control; Pandemics; Betacoronavirus; Visitors to Patients; Coronavirus Infections/epidemiology; Pneumonia Viral/epidemiology
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused health care facilities to restrict visitors for patients in all care settings. Most pediatric care facilities have restricted visitation to one parent at a time, unfortunately even if the child is in critical condition or is terminally ill. These situations have necessitated the use of technology such as the Zoom platform to have difficult conversations concerning complex medical decision-making and goals of care. In cases where the child is deemed at immediate end of life, many facilities will allow both parents to be at the bedside, but no other family or friends that may be integral support to the parents or child. These situations have compelled the use of FaceTime, Zoom, or Skype technology to facilitate real-time support at end of life for these young patients and their caregivers. This article presents a case where technologies such as these were utilized to assist a family in goals-of-care discussions and at end of life for an infant in the intensive care unit at a large urban pediatric care facility during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bettini EA
Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing
2020
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1097/njh.0000000000000694" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">10.1097/njh.0000000000000694</a>
Videoconferencing to reduce stress among hospitalized children
Child; Female; Hospitalization; Humans; Male; Parents; Prospective Studies; Videoconferencing; Stress; Psychological; Hospitalized; Propensity Score
OBJECTIVES: Family-Link is a videoconferencing program that allows hospitalized children and their parents to virtually visit family members and friends using laptops, webcams, and a secure Wi-Fi connection. We evaluated the association of Family-Link use on the reduction in stress experienced by children during hospitalization. METHODS: We offered Family-Link to pediatric patients who had an expected length of hospitalization equal to or greater than 4 days. We measured the stress levels of hospitalized children at admission and discharge using the previously published Parental Stress Survey. We used propensity score matching and multivariable linear regression methods to evaluate the relationship between the use of Family-Link and stress experienced by children during hospitalization. RESULTS: We included a total of 367 children in the study: 232 Family-Link users and 135 non-Family-Link users. Using the propensity score matching method, we found that the use of Family-Link was significantly associated with a greater reduction in overall mean stress compared with non-Family-Link users among the cohort of patients who lived closer to the hospital and had shorter lengths of hospitalization (β = 0.23; 95% confidence interval, 0.03 to 0.43; P < .05). In this cohort, the reduction in overall mean stress was 37% greater among Family-Link users than non-Family-Link users. CONCLUSIONS: The use of videoconferencing by some hospitalized children and families to conduct virtual visits with family and friends outside of the hospital was associated with a greater reduction in stress during hospitalization than those who did not use videoconferencing.
2014-07
Yang NH; Dharmar M; Hojman NM; Sadorra CK; Sundberg D; Wold GL; Parsapour K; Marcin JP
Pediatrics
2014
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
Journal Article
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2013-3912" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">10.1542/peds.2013-3912</a>