Advanced ICU Care Expands its Tele-ICU Services into Mississippi, Across Wisconsin

Partnerships bring proven advanced monitoring technology and support of best practices in the ICU to patients and staff

ST. LOUIS, MO (Jan. 13, 2011) - Advanced ICU Care^® announced today that its virtual intensive care unit (ICU) program ― which provides 24/7 critical care physician (intensivist) monitoring and management for ICU patients, in collaboration with local medical and nursing staff ― has been implemented in hospitals spanning from Georgia to Mississippi to Wisconsin.

Across the new sites ―including Memorial Hospital at Gulfport in Gulfport, Miss. and Wisconsin's Divine Savior Healthcare (Portage), ProHealth Care's Waukesha Memorial (Waukesha) and Oconomowoc Memorial (Oconomowoc) ― 93 ICU and cardiac care patient rooms have been outfitted with state-of-the-art, tele-ICU technology.

"This program underscores the hospitals' commitment to using advanced technology and a multidisciplinary, evidence-based approach to enhance outcomes in the ICU," said Mary Jo Gorman, MD, MBA, chief executive officer for Advanced ICU Care. "Our medical staff is excited to work seamlessly with their teams of physicians to support the ICUs and help them to continue to provide the best possible care and safety for their patients."

These hospitals join the ranks of roughly 7 percent of U.S. hospital adult ICU beds that are covered by tele-ICU technology. The aging population, in conjunction with the severe shortage of the intensivist specialty, is driving this growing trend toward the use of telemedicine.

According to a recently released study by the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI), "Critical Care, Critical Choices: The Case for Tele-ICUs in Intensive Care," tele-ICUs could be the solution to America's growing shortage of critical care physicians. Given the study's compelling clinical and financial results, the authors conclude that the effective implementation of tele-ICU programs should be seriously considered in hospitals nationwide. "Already, approximately 250 hospitals across 30 states use the tele-ICU technology, and further growth is likely," Gorman noted.

"Advanced ICU Care was created to meet this growing need," said Gorman. "We have invested in our medical staff, the technology and our process improvement programs to assure measurable results for our hospital partners as more adopt this life-saving program."

The NEHI study found that hospitals that use tele-ICU technologies have seen significant improvements in patient outcomes, mortality, length of stay, margin per case, patient retention and volume growth. As the largest independent tele-ICU provider in the country, Advanced ICU Care has been achieving significant clinical and financial results for its hospital partners since 2006.

"Our relationship with Advanced ICU Care has provided the flexibility we needed to support our existing intensivists and other critical care clinicians in delivering best practices and an evidence-based approach to care to our patients in the ICU," said James Gardner, M.D., chief medical executive for ProHealth Care's Waukesha Memorial. "We couldn't ask for a better partner to treat our most critical patients."

The tele-ICU technology allows Advanced ICU Care's intensivists in St. Louis to monitor and treat ICU patients in real time, 24/7, at each of the hospitals - collaborating with local caregivers and providing support for evidence-based best practices in the ICU to improve patient outcomes and efficiency. Advanced ICU Care's specialized clinicians monitor and treat approximately 15,000 patients a year through this advanced technology.

"We are committed to providing advanced technology and the highest quality care for patients in our community," said Michael T. Decker, president and CEO of Divine Savior. "This program supplements the high quality ICU patient care that our bedside physicians and nurses provide, further enhancing the care and safety of our patients."

About Advanced ICU Care

Advanced ICU Care® is a medical service company that provides high-quality remote critical care to patients in the intensive care units (ICU) of community hospitals. Through experienced clinicians, supported by cutting-edge telemedicine technology, and a process improvement program, Advanced ICU Care provides continuous ICU patient monitoring and improved care and safety outcomes to critically ill patients across the country. Hospital ICUs are linked with Advanced ICU Care's virtual ICU Operations Center in St. Louis, Missouri, allowing Advanced ICU Care's board-certified intensivists (critical care medicine physicians) and critical care nurses to monitor hospital ICU patients from a central location. For more information, visit: www.icumedicine.com.