Parents whose babies are being treated in Orange Park Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NIC-U ) can now watch a live stream of their around-the-clock care.
Called NICVIEW, bedside cameras let families see their pre-mature and special-needs babies on smartphone, tablet and computer, according to the hospital.
“In order for us to keep our tiny babies healthy we have restricted visitation in the NICU,” said Suzanne Jones, Women and Children’s Director at Orange Park Medical Center in an email. “This technology lets our parents see their little ones outside of visiting hours and gives siblings and other family members the chance to see the baby any time they want.”
Orange Park Medical Center treats around 500 babies in their NICU each year. For the Tyson family, NICVIEW would have helped put their young son Mikey at ease while his little brother Easton spent 19 days in the NICU.
“We had so many cries and Mikey had so many questions that I struggled to answer. I remember the days like it was yesterday,” said Molly Tyson, Orange Park Medical Center patient and mom of two. “If we had the opportunity to show him where his little brother was it would have made a world of a difference for our family.”
Orange Park touts itself as the only hospital in Northeast Florida to offer this service.
The cameras are part of a nearly $3 million renovation and expansion of the Orange Park NIC-U.
The hospital announced last month that it was more-than doubling the unit’s capacity.
Contact reporter Cyd Hoskinson at choskinson@wjct.org, 904-358-6351 and on Twitter @cydwjctnews.
