We recognize the pivotal role critical access hospitals play for families and infants across the state.
Jessica G. Clem, MD, MPHDartmouth Health Connected Care and Center for TeleHealth and Dartmouth Health Children’s announce a partnership with North Country Hospital (NCH), a not-for-profit critical access hospital in Newport, VT, dedicated to serving residents of Orleans and North Essex counties, to provide critical neonatal services to NCH patients via telemedicine.
A baby’s birth is a complex process on its own; for some newborns, adjusting to life outside the mother’s body can lead to a need for a higher level of care. Dartmouth Health TeleICN, or intensive care neonatology provided through telemedicine, provides 24/7 real-time assessment and treatment recommendations for babies born at NCH. TeleICN has been shown to reduce the need for transfers, helping to keep patients and their families closer to home.
“We are excited to expand our collaboration with Dartmouth Health,” said Alexandra Bannach, MD, FAAP, NCH’s medical director for pediatrics. “The TeleICN program will further support our constant efforts to provide the highest quality of care to our smallest patients by allowing us to combine the personal, hands-on care our families know and trust with around-the-clock access to specialized neonatal expertise.”
Using state-of-the-art telemedicine technology, a board-certified Dartmouth Health Children’s neonatologist will join the NCH bedside team via live interactive audiovisual technology to provide neonatal care and support for a wide variety of diagnoses.
NCH is the 11th critical access hospital in New England to partner with Dartmouth Health Connected Care for TeleICN services.
“We recognize the pivotal role critical access hospitals play for families and infants across the state,” said Jessica G. Clem, MD, MPH, Dartmouth Health Children’s TeleICN medical director. “These services allow us to help local bedside providers support infants with unanticipated healthcare needs around the time of delivery, which is especially helpful for rural hospitals that are not located near neonatal intensive care unit-level care and also allows us to better support families if neonatal transport to a NICU is necessary.”
Together, NCH and Dartmouth Health Children’s are continuing a shared commitment to delivering advanced, compassionate newborn care—close to home when it matters most.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital (Children’s Hospital at DHMC/CHaD) and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.
About Dartmouth Health Children's
Dartmouth Health Children’s is the only comprehensive pediatric healthcare system in the region with the first integrative medicine children’s hospital in the country. Fully integrated in Dartmouth Health and anchored for more than 30 years by Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (CHaD) in Lebanon, NH, Dartmouth Health Children’s promotes health, advances knowledge, and delivers the best patient- and family-centered care for infants, children, and adolescents across New Hampshire and Vermont. Dartmouth Health Children’s conducts groundbreaking research and educates the next generations of health professionals as the primary pediatric partner of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Highly skilled, inclusive, and collaborative children’s health professionals provide care in multiple settings across the region. A unique partnership between DH and the state of New Hampshire provides the only inpatient psychiatric care for children and adolescents in the state at Hampstead Hospital. Outpatient specialty visits and same-day surgery services are available at more than 20 locations, including all Dartmouth Health member locations, throughout New Hampshire and Vermont.