Complex pediatric feeding disorders: using teleconferencing technology to improve access to a treatment program.

Feeding difficulties are one of the most commonly occurring issues in pediatric care, affecting approximately a quarter of typically developing children and up to 90% of children with special needs. Community health care professionals often struggle to adequately address the complex problems of children with more complicated feeding disorders. For the most severely affected of these children, feeding tubes and poor growth are ongoing challenges. To provide quality care, video teleconferencing with specialized providers offers outstanding opportunities for comprehensive treatment and communication to enhance long-term outcomes. This article provides results of a teleconferencing pilot project addressing the needs of children with complex feeding disorders referred from locations up to 3,500 miles away. Fifteen patients participated in the 26-month project from September 2002 to October 2004. The impact of the intervention on family satisfaction, costs to family, provider satisfaction, and clinical outcomes is also reported.