He loves to dance.

He loves to clap his hands.

He loves the floor.

He loves his tummy time.

His whole name is Chance Atlas, Ezekiel Jones.

So we gave him a big name for a small person that was at one pound 7 00:00:19,419 --> 00:00:21,454 He was born at 25 weeks.

He stayed in the hospital, in Greenwood Hospital for 114 days.

We went through a lot.

We actually have to get here, To this point, we didn't know he's going to survive.

13 00:00:32,799 --> 00:00:36,636 The doctors were saying, 'we don't know if he's going to make it,' when he first came.

They made sure they did everything they could to make sure he's here with us today.

He's a miracle baby.

And he's our blessing.

That's why we need him Chance.

Because God gave him a chance at life.

21 00:00:52,285 --> 00:00:53,486 He's a medical complex baby.

He has Down syndrome.

He's amazing.

And he's been a joy to our family.

That being said, I just cannot express it enough that he's the most intelligent baby we ever had in our life.

He's amazing.

A family who has a child with medical complexity has to be both a parent and a caregiver.

They'll provide a lot of medical care in addition to standard parenting.

The child will potentially need assistance with toileting.

Well into elementary school and even adult years.

They may have special needs related to wound care or skin conditions, require feedings through a feeding pump.

The family has to be trained sometimes in special medical equipment like suction machines and medications and machines that help with breathing, or ventilators that help with breathing.

38 00:01:47,107 --> 00:01:50,243 This is his trach and oxygen.

We keep it out 30 minutes a day.

He's been doing great.

And he has a feeding tube also.

We have to change the bags every day after his feed.

And he's on there for 20 hours a day.

He's off for four hours a day.

45 00:02:03,156 --> 00:02:05,859 In order to really effectively take care of these patients, we have to take a very proactive approach.

We see our patients at regular intervals with the hope of identifying problems early before they blossom into a medical crisis, resulting in them needing to go to the emergency room or be admitted to the hospital.

And that's our overall goal, to be able to keep these kids as well enough as possible outside of the hospital.

Our office is the only office specific for children with medical complexity and up to date.

We do have a number of patients because of that, that come from outside of Greenville to receive primary care at our office.

Good job.

Because a child with medical complexity may have additional equipment.

A family who is leaving their home to go to a doctor's appointment has to think of ten extra things that another family might have to think of.

They have to remember to bring the oxygen tank.

They have to remember to bring a go bag in case there's an emergency for a child's tracheostomy tube.

Some of our most fragile patients require two person transport, You have to have two people to travel with him because you got to have One person sitting back there with his pulse ox And making sure he's ok, even if he's sick.

Or it's just us going down the road.

The main barrier that a lot of our families face is transportation and the secondary barrier ends up being stability.

And so that's why the beauty of doing telehealth visits is a big help for a medically complex patient population.

74 00:03:39,686 --> 00:03:41,955 That's great.

Our philosophy of care here is that we provide care to the child in a family centered way.

That makes sense for them.

And telemedicine certainly fits really seamlessly into that philosophy.

80 00:03:56,269 --> 00:04:00,873 We are able to see kids for sick visits without someone having to transport their child, who's now sick on oxygen, into the office.

We can safely examine them in the home, not only having conversations with the family and seeing what the child looks like on the screen, but we are able to examine the child using something called peripherals that our patients have, where we can listen to their heart and lungs and examine their ears, look in their throat.

88 00:04:23,096 --> 00:04:25,932 The biggest way that telehealth can really help our patients and our families is providing them access to care when they need it.

being able to deliver the same quality of care or an extremely high level of care through a virtual visit is invaluable for a lot of our patients and families.

93 00:04:39,445 --> 00:04:42,348 It's a blessing, is phenomenal.

It is a blessing you have kids that are medically complex and as a parent, it's very hard to know what to do.

So you need that reassurance.

I want to cry.

Because it's amazing.

It is amazing Telehealth will never replace face to face visits.

There's nothing like seeing your patient and their family in the office and getting to connect in that way.

But it has such a nice place for augmenting the care that we provide out of our office.

after using virtual care, for the last four years, I'm very impressed at how much we can really do from afar.

we have been really able to, minimize some of the travel burden for our families and improve their overall access to care.

I want to share to the moms who never had a down syndrome child.

It's special.

I don't want nobody to be scared.

I was at first.

But I wouldn't trade him for the world.

114 00:05:42,408 --> 00:05:45,678 But what you have to understand is our kids are amazing.

And all you gotta do is push with God and you will get through every obstacle of life with your kids.

You have to be the best parents you can be for your kids.

And you stand by their side and everything will be okay.