The cleft palate team at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center (RUNMC) is using FaceTalk for conducting consultations with children with cleft lip and/or palate deformities. These are children born with a cleft in the lip, the upper palate, the jaw or a combination of all three. The doctor uses a video screen to check the children's progress. The children can stay at home for the consultation and do not need to travel to Nijmegen for every appointment. In this article, Stefaan Bergé explains about the use of FaceTalk in his department.
The cleft palate team at RUNMC is still testing the use of FaceTalk, but it is due to be finalized in December 2012. Bergé is Professor and Head of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery at Radboud University Nijmegen. He is enthusiastic about the project."I think that FaceTalk will make it much easier to communicate with these children. They will be in their own home and will probably find it easier to talk than in hospital, where they are often faced with several doctors and a slightly chaotic situation. An online consultation is less stressful for a child. An added advantage is that Mom or Dad can even join in from their workplace. They don't need to take time off."
"Our patients come from every corner of the Netherlands. An online consultation via FaceTalk saves them a lot of time. They no longer need to travel to Nijmegen for a check-up. There are various stages to treating children with a cleft lip or palate. It starts between birth and four years old, and continues between the ages of ten and thirteen years. They need several surgical procedures, so the children have to come to hospital on a regular basis. These are the periods when we really need to see them.
But between four and ten-years-old and twelve and eighteen-years-old, we only need to check their progress. These consultations only take a couple of minutes and can be carried out perfectly well via FaceTalk. The webcam allows us to look into the patient´s mouth and if we are in any doubt, we ask them to come to the hospital."
"During this test phase, we are looking for the right template for the e-consultation. We are testing this by arranging two appointments for the same child back-to-back. The first one online via FaceTalk and the second one in the normal way at hospital. We then compare the two consultations and make a list of points for improvement to optimize the e-consultation. One of the things we are developing is a more specific questionnaire to be used during the consultation."
"To my mind, healthcare has been through a major revolution in the last thirty years. Technological advances have made the system much more efficient. During an e-consultation, several professionals can talk seriously to a patient from different locations at the same time. All their attention is then focused on that patient. What's more, the online consultations offer teaching opportunities. Students around the world can follow a consultation and learn from it. In short, I think FaceTalk has huge potential in this respect."