Miles away, a physician’s assistant hears a sound in a student’s chest. Based on the catch in the student’s breathing, the physician’s assistant diagnoses asthmatic bronchitis.

The student has never left the school. The physician’s assistance has never left her office in another South Georgia city. The school nurse has information for the child’s parents, who never had to miss a minute of work to take their child to the doctor.

This situation illustrates just one case in the Berrien School System’s pilot participation in a telemed program. But it underscores what one day may be the new way in which children throughout Georgia and the United States visit the school nurse and the doctor.

Through computer technology, Berrien County Elementary School’s The Med Clinic allows students to see a doctor while at school, and for a doctor to see the child without ever leaving the physician’s offices.

Berrien County is the only Georgia school system with a school-based clinic outside of two participating systems in Atlanta. Berrien is the only system in the state with telemedicine capabilities, according to coordinators.

Matt Jansen,  Continue reading →