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Remote ICU centers: Redefining the face of healthcare

Case Management Weekly, September 18, 2007

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According to Newsweek, the latest trend for overburdened healthcare facilities is to outsource the observation of critically ill patients to doctors and nurses located off-site at a remote monitoring facility. Developed by the Baltimore firm, Visicu, this radical concept promises to redefine the way hospitals provide care by supplementing on-site medical staffs with critical-care doctors stationed off-site. 

Created by former Johns Hopkins intensivists, Brian Rosenfeld and Michael J. Breslow, the eICU system allows a single doctor or nurse to chart the condition of multiple patients with remote monitors, Webcams, and trend-tracking software capable of detecting problems before an emergency situation develops. The off-site doctors and nurses have audio, visual, and data connections to each patient and are able to communicate with on-site staff directly through the facility's phone system.

The system costs $2.5 million but may lead to considerable savings, according to six-hospital system Sentara Healthcare (Norfolk, VA), which reported a 27% reduction in mortality rate, a 17% reduction in length of stay, and savings of $2,150 per patient. Furthermore, eICU offers smaller, rural hospitals that cannot afford their own critical-care wards the option of ICU monitoring.

Source: Newsweek

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