Although GSF has paused travel due the current pandemic, our dedicated staff and volunteers around the world continue to provide patient care through Telehealth programs. These online consultations bring together US-based volunteers, in-country volunteers, and patient families for follow-up and ongoing care.
Telehealth is enabling GSF to maintain our core commitment to our patients and their long-term health and wellbeing. For example, in the past 3 months, GSF team members in the United States and with Fundación Global Smile-Ecuador have worked together to monitor patients who have undergone surgical procedures and provide guidance to parents (see photo). The GSF-MENA team has been communicating with patients to provide speech and feeding consultations as well as check-in on general health. Our Salvadorian and Peruvian teams have also conducted similar telehealth sessions.
All of us look forward to resuming our outreach cleft care programs as soon as possible, but we plan to expand our Telehealth efforts to provide the best quality comprehensive cleft care possible.