FREE Health Data Management Site Registration

Sign up today and access the leading source of Health Care I.T. information on the Web.
Your FREE site registration entitles you to:

Free Health Data Management e-newsletter
 
Search more than 12,000 articles
 
Access Web Seminars on a host of I.T. topics
 
White Papers and Industry Research that provide valuable insights on a variety of technologies and implementation issues
 
Podcasts, updates on industry events, and much more!

 
   

Hospitals Cooperate for eICU


April 28, 2008

Six community hospitals in Maryland will use grant funds to implement telemedicine technology that enables continuous remote monitoring of intensive care units.

The hospitals have formed Maryland eCare LLC as an umbrella organization to cooperate in sharing resources to improve critical care in community and rural hospitals. They will use the technology of the VISICU unit of Philips Healthcare, Andover, Mass. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield in Maryland will fund startup costs during the next three years via a $3 million grant.

The VISICU technology, called eICU, enables voice, video and data connectivity between intensive care specialists at a remote site and physicians and nurses within an ICU. The specialists can see the same patients and data that clinicians in the ICU see and alert the clinicians to any situation that warrants attention. The specialists also can consult on-demand with ICU clinicians.

Christiana Care Health System, a two-hospital delivery system in Wilmington, Del., and a VISICU customer, will host the technology for Maryland eCare, which hopes to attract more hospitals in Maryland to participate. The hospitals will use eICU from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on weekdays, and 24 hours on weekends and holidays.

Although the Blues plan is covering startup costs, participating hospitals, once live, will pay $37,000 per ICU bed per year to Christiana Care for ongoing costs. The six hospitals total 71 ICU beds. Maryland eCare is talking with four other hospitals, with a total of 60 ICU beds, about joining the program. Marc Zubrow, M.D., director of critical care medicine at Christiana Care, will become medical director of Maryland eCare.

The six charter hospitals under the Maryland eCare program are Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin, Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick, Civista Medical Center in LaPlata, Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown, and Washington County Health System in Hagerstown.

“Bringing eICU to our hospitals raises the quality of care in our communities,” says James Xinis, president and CEO of Calvert Memorial Hospital.

Maryland eCare talked with two other delivery system users of eICU in close proximity to the state about hosting the software before selecting Christiana Care, Xinis says. The delivery systems were near capacity with their systems, but Christiana Care has plenty of capacity, he notes.

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield sees the initiative as a model for other provider organizations across the nation and hopes to make results public to encourage more such programs, says Chet Burrell, president at the plan covering 3.2 million members in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

More information is available at visicu.com.

Decision Support Archive
Vendor News Archive
Hospitals Archive
Payers Archive

I.T. Spotlights