LIMA—A new collaboration between St. Rita’s Medical Center (SRMC) and Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH) seeks to enhance pediatric care to residents of Allen County.

The partnership is to enable advanced education and training for physicians, extend state-of-the-art pediatric research to Allen County and provide increased direct patient access to NCH pediatric experts.

“Nationwide Children's Hospital is pleased to collaborate with St. Rita's Medical Center to enhance neonatal and pediatric care in Allen County and surrounding communities,” said Gil Peri, director of growth initiatives at NCH. “Our neonatologists and pediatric sub-specialists are looking forward to working with the hospital and community physicians to provide care close to home.”

Clinical care includes additional specialty clinics, reference laboratory testing, consultation services for SRMC’s nursery and telemedicine capabilities.

NCH currently provides cardiology and gastroenterology clinic services at the SRMC Pediatric Specialty Clinic.  NCH will also support future specialty clinics based on community needs, such as endocrinology, pulmonology and genetics.

ChildLabSM, a division of NCH and a nationally recognized pediatric and esoteric laboratory, is working with SRMC to provide pediatric-specific laboratory services.  ChildLabSM staff members are specially trained in pediatrics and are able to conduct a full range of laboratory tests that are sent to NCH for analysis in order to maintain high quality diagnostic care.

A telemedicine network will connect neonatology experts at both SRMC and NCH, and NCH and SRMC will look for opportunities to leverage this technology in the SRMC nursery, providing telemedicine consults with NCH neonatologists.

Telemedicine, also known as videoconferencing, enhances accessibility and communication between physicians through real-time videoconferencing, allowing NCH physicians to visually access patients and review diagnostic images and data in real-time. This technology enables specialists at NCH to view distressed patients with exceptional clarity, examine detailed X-rays, view lab results and consult with SRMC physicians.