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Technology allows doctors to treat patients by remote control

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, March 31, 2005

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Technology developed by two Johns Hopkins intensive-care specialists allows specialized physicians to treat patients, even if they're thousands of miles apart, reports the Baltimore Sun.

Inova Health System, which operates four hospitals in Virginia, put in place the remote monitoring system created by VISICU Inc., a Baltimore company founded in 1998 by two Johns Hopkins intensive-care specialists.

VISICU now has 20 electronic intensive care units (eICUs) from New York to Hawaii, monitoring 1,318 beds. The company is working on orders from nine additional systems.

Experts say that a shortage of intensive care specialists and the need to turn over ICU beds as quickly as possible are driving the growth of such systems. Studies show that patients fare better when attended by intensivists and spend less time in the ICU as a result. The shortage of these specialists is expected to get worse, especially as a growing elderly population increases demand for critical care beds.

"There's no conceivable way to staff ICUs adequately, given the number of intensivists," said Brian Rosenfeld, MD, one of VISCU's founders and its executive vice president and chief medical officer. The company began as a way to leverage the availably supply of critical care doctors to cover more beds, he said.

The system also includes mechanisms to minimize errors. For example, since doctors monitor several patients simultaneously, a box pops up on the screen asking the doctor to confirm which patient should receive a medication that the doctor ordered, said Rosenfeld.

To read the complete Baltimore Sun article, click here.

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