Introduction

It is a specialized telemedicine clinic - started in 2019. It provides medical consultations related to the specialty ( mainly pediatric and adult Congenital heart diseases and their surgical treatment).
The clinic aims to provide medical-surgical consultation to pediatric and Adult cardiologists, Internal medcine, and intensive care doctors who have a patient with Conginital heart disease who needs surgical cardiac consultation or second opinion.
The clinic also provides medical and surgical consultation directly to the patient and family, to obtain all information related to the disease, its development and the best available treatment options, whether surgical or interventional, and answering all the questions that the family has.
Providing the family with a medical report in English language which summarizing the patient’s condition over the years and helps them in countries where they find it difficult to communicate with the medical staff.
Referral the patient to the hospital in emergency cases to receive appropriate treatment.
Archiving all information related to the development of the patient’s condition and the operations he performed in his life .
Continuous communication with the patient and his family to monitor the development of the patient’s health condition and take early action before the development of complications resulting from the nature of the heart disease.
Many patients with heart diseases live in areas with few or no cardiac surgeon, as a result they either see no specialist or must drive hours to receive specialized care. Telemedicine allows these individuals to get access to expert surgeon doctors from afar .

Guide of telemedicine clinic

The first step - filling out the appointment form

A normal request form - to schedule an appointment for a patient (whose health condition is stable) - visiting for the first time - click here

Where the patient is at home and want to book an appointment to check and to know some details about the surgical procedure in terms of (the method of the surgical procedure, the risks of the surgical procedure and its complications, the costs of the surgical procedure, the expected results, and the development of the treatment and disease in the short term and far away). The request contains basic information related to the patient’s illness and the examinations or operations that were performed during the previous period.

Note

Please upload all documents related to the patient’s condition (last cardiac echocardiography, surgical report, catheterization report...video of catheterization or echocardiogram, if available) so that they can be reviewed and you can be given some of the required directions before or during the session. This is to save session time.
If the patient does not have old documents - please write a summary of the child’s condition and upload it with the application (because the patient often needs a recent heart echocardiogram to evaluate the current heart condition).
The language of the report does not matter.

The second step - receiving a response from the coordinator

The coordinator will send a massage via the email or WhatsApp that was included in the application form , indicating (the patient’s medical report number MRN in the clinic , the date and time of the interview , some recommendations before session time ).
The interview takes place daily from 6-10 pm , Damascus time.
The interview is conducted using Google meet, Zoom, and WhatsApp
The appointment may be cancelled by us if necessary - the coordinator will inform you.

The third step - conducting the interview

Please open the interview program five minutes before the appointment.
Be sure that headphones and microphone are working before the session .
It is not necessary for open the camera - but the camera can be opened by us for sharing with you some pictures for clarification.
Please prepare all questions related to the patient’s condition before the session ( Relatives are preferred to be present at the session).
During the session we will discuss , the patient’s previous and current condition and the results of tests and whether there is a need for new tests (such as a repeat echocardiogram or cardiac catheterization...).also we will review the results of previous operations, and we will discuss the best appropriate treatment options for the patient .
If the patient needs surgery, the details will be discussed (necessity of surgery, time of surgery, cost of surgery, length of stay in the hospital, risks of surgery).
The session takes place in Arabic or English
Duration of session 15-25 min.

Fourth step - follow-up

The coordinator will send a medical report on the session summary and the treatment plan.
If the patient needs another appointment, you will be notified at the end of the session.
If the patient needs to be admitted to the hospital, the doctor will refer him and follow up with the supervising doctors.
For consultations fees, details will be provided to you via WhatsApp or email.