Virtual doctor visits introduced at Brockway Area School District

CLEARFIELD COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) -- Most parents dread calls from school. You're child could be hurt, or sick or they may even need to see a doctor.

In many instances, the adult may need to leave work to take the child for a diagnosis but now, Penn Highlands Healthcare is offering parents a convenient new option for one school district.

Penn Highlands is offering virtual doctor visits in partnership with the Brockway Area School District. The visits, MySchoolHealthNow, will allow the school nurse to connect a Penn Highlands physician via high-definition telemedicine video and communications equipment for the evaluation of a child.

"We've always had this vision, the school nurse and I, on doing school-based telemedicine to kind of help keep kids in school, decrease absenteeism, get kids to their doctor's appointments, and help parents out,” Angela Rhodes the Director of Telemedicine said. 

This program didn’t happen overnight. For the last six years, Rhodes and Brockway Elementary Nurse Lesley Martini have been brainstorming how to get remote medical technology into the school.

Now the school has what they call a “telemedicine cart”.  

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