LONDON, ONT. -- John Hodgkinson suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well as a heart condition.
“I have difficulty breathing. Certain temperatures, when it gets real hot and real cold it’s hard to do anything, I can’t go out and I have no energy,” he says.
What has helped with his condition beyond medical care has been group education sessions through St. Joseph’s Health Care with others living with COPD.
Despite not being able to go in person, Hodgkinson has been able to maintain the education sessions through virtual care.
“Everything that’s been virtual, and I have about three areas now that have been virtual, have been absolutely fabulous.”
Medical director of the COPD program at St. Joe’s Dr. Donald Farquhar is one of many doctors providing virtual care for patients like Hodgkinson.
“What we would normally do, which is seeing patients in our clinics and doing physical examinations and some other testing like pulmonary function testing, we are doing it all on telephone.”
In fact, since the pandemic hit, doctors, nurses and other staff at St. Joe's have been providing a form of virtual care for approximately 1000 patients each day.
“Being able to look at different ways of serving our patients by keeping them safe and making sure they have access to care is something we’ve had the opportunity to do here at St. Joseph’s,” says Glen Kearns, chief information officer.
From mental health care for veterans, to pain management and allergy clinics, there is a list of more than a dozen areas that the hospital has been able to virtually care for patients.
“There is a wide variety of clinical programs where we’ve been able to reach out to patients,” says Kearns.
“There have been several chronic disease programs where we’ve been able to make a difference for patients whether that’s through geriatrics or cardiac rehab services.”
Although not ideal for some forms of medicine, Kearns says virtual care has already proven to be more convenient for some patients, and could be a model that will be used even post COVID-19.
