LOS ANGELES — In a first-of-its-kind partnership, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District have partnered to offer virtual health care visits for children at 20 area schools based on absenteeism rates and the number of students with chronic conditions at each location, it was announced Wednesday.
The Virtual Care at School program is designed to create a convenient way for children to receive care from CHLA specialists in lieu of being absent from school for an appointment, according to CHLA.
Set to begin on the first day of the 2023-24 school year, the program will be available to existing CHLA patients aged 12 and older who attend a participating LAUSD school. The virtual appointments will be offered in the specialty areas of Adolescent Medicine, Allergy and Immunology, Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics, Endocrinology, Infectious Diseases, Medical Genetics and Pulmonology.
“Family-centered care is at the core of everything we do at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and we know that children with chronic illnesses constantly missing school and caregivers having to leave work early to travel across town for a doctor’s appointment are pain points for many of our patient families,” Omkar Kulkarni, chief transformation and digital officer at CHLA, said in a statement.
According to CHLA, telehealth visits have skyrocketed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, about 470 virtual appointments were conducted by CHLA annually, but that number now exceeds 42,000. Officials said using telehealth is a benefit for students, allowing them to receive care without sacrificing classroom time.
“Los Angeles Unified takes an active approach in providing resources that support the whole child by fostering academic excellence, nurturing and enriching green spaces, physical wellbeing and social emotional health,” LAUSD Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said in a statement.
“The partnership with…
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