By Healthcare Facilities Today

Students at Ossun Elementary in Lafayette, La., with common sick-at-school ailments will soon be seen on the elementary school campus by a doctor in an exam room about five miles away at Carencro Middle School's school-based health center.

Through technology, such as Bluetooth-enabled stethoscopes, otoscopes and ophthalmoscopes, pediatrician Dr. Donna Wilson will see patients at the elementary school as part of a telehealth program. The telehealth program is a partnership between the Lafayette Parish School System and Lafayette General Health and its foundation, according to a story on the Daily Journal website.

The telehealth initiative will be tested first at Carencro Middle, where the school system opened a school-based health center in 2010. The goal is test the telehealth model and explore a more cost-effective way to expand school-based health services across the district, said Bradley Cruice, the school district's director of health and wellness.

Lafayette General has provided the equipment and technology for the telehealth program and the district supplies the school nurse, who was already employed at the school, according to the article. The telemedicine project is the first major investment of the Lafayette General Foundation.

The catalyst for the telemedicine project grew out of the success of the hospital's first telemedicine clinic at Stuller Inc., the Lafayette-based international jewelry manufacturing and supply facility, the article said.

The long-term goal is for every high school feeder zone to have a school-based health center and to provide health services to students at other schools within the zone, according to the article. Currently, there is only one other school-based health center at Northside High, which opened in 1996 and is operated by Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, not the school system.

Read the article.