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The hub is hard-wired with dedicated communications infrastructure and two-way interactive audiovisual technology.
“Our nurses and physicians work in 12-hour shifts, and then they hand off for another team to do the second shift. There are also coordinators that are part of the program who help behind the scenes in supporting the staff,” Desjardins told HITInfrastructure.com.
The team collaborates with bedside clinicians in rural hospitals to provide care, support, monitoring, and clinical consultations, enabling patients to receive care close to home.
Desjardins explained that the hub uses Philips’ eCareManager software, algorithms, and analytics to improve patient care. “Our program really is proactive in early identification of patient deterioration and helping to support the bedside team in whatever way possible. We're able to leverage the eCareManager system in identifying those circumstances."
The TeleICU service helps rural hospitals increase access to evidence-based care by providing their in-house clinical teams with expert support, as well as monitoring of critically ill patients through advanced predictive analytics software.
“If you walked into the hub, you would see our docs and nurses in front of multiple high-tech stations,” Curtis said.
“TeleICU has three different components to it. Anyone on the bedside team can ask for immediate help by hitting a button on the wall of the patient's room. Another component is the software, which is constantly monitoring the patients behind the scenes and analyzing the data. The software looks for signs of early deterioration often before even an experienced bedside team might pick it up. It then can alert the local team to pay extra attention to that patient. Then there's the proactive component where the team is assisting in rounds and getting involved with the patients right when they get admitted. All those things are happening in the hub while the normal care is going on at the bedside,” Curtis related.
Desjardins explained that TeleICU program has 68 ICU – 48 ICU beds in Lebanon, 10 ICU beds at Cheshire Medical Center, and 10 ICU beds at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington. Each of those 68 beds have a button, a microphone and speaker, a two-way camera and monitor, and an interface with the patient’s medical data that loads into the eCareManager software to help with analytics.
“The monitors and the data are fed directly into the system. A huge piece of putting this technology in place is achieving those interfaces,” added Curtis.
“While the technology certainly helps us provide this service in the way that we want to, our biggest focus is ensuring the clinical integration with the ICUs that we're working with, because ultimately we are just an extension of that bedside team,” Desjardins said.
“We spend a tremendous amount of time working with the clinical staff in the ICU units or in other hospitals to make sure that we understand workflows, processes. and protocols and are able to act in accordance with what they are looking for,” Desjardins stressed.
