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Community hospitals back telemedicine

Case Management Weekly, October 9, 2007

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Community hospitals may be bucking a national trend to embrace telemedicine for critical care patients, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch. The paper reports that regional hospitals are turning to electronic intensive care units (eICUs), which allow off-site specialists to monitor patients' progress, due to tightening budgets and a lack of critical care physicians.

The paper also says that, despite recent reports suggesting otherwise, take-up of eICUs may be slowing nationally.

Research has long shown that treatment by intensive care specialists, or intensivists, can improve outcomes and reduce LOS, yet evidence backing electronic critical care remains thin on the ground. While some hospitals have reported up to a 17% reduction in LOS, others say that they have failed to win back set-up costs of $2.5 million and above. That insurers and Medicare are yet to reimburse for telemedicine is also limiting uptake.

Source: St Louis Post-Dispatch and Newsweek

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