Maryland Telemedicine Project Begins

HDM Breaking News, May 29, 2009

An ambitious telemedicine project in Maryland has kicked off at one hospital. Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick is the first of six participants to go live in the Maryland eCare project.

Intensive care unit staff at Calvert Memorial now can connect with a remote monitoring center at Christiana Care in Wilmington, Del., to consult with critical care physicians and nurses.

Christiana Care uses eICU technology from VISICU, a unit of Philips Healthcare, Andover, Mass. The technology enables voice, video and data connectivity. For example, specialists at Christiana Care can monitor patients remotely in real time to detect changes in a patient’s condition, watching such indicators as blood pressure and respiratory rates and alerting staff at other hospitals if potential problems arise.

Startup costs for the project are funded by a $3 million grant from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. Participating hospitals will pay $37,000 per ICU bed per year to Christiana Care for ongoing costs.

Later this year, Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury and St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown will join the telemedicine project. By 2011, organizers expect almost 80 ICU beds will be connected to Maryland eCare. Other participants will be Atlantic General Hospital, Berlin; Civista Medical Center, La Plata; and Washington County Health System, Hagerstown.

More information is available at marylandecare.org.

--Howard Anderson

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