Advanced ICU Care Begins Delivering 24/7 Coverage and a Tele-ICU Solution to Critically Ill Patients at St. Mary’s Hospital

Centralia, Illinois (February 3, 2012) - St. Mary's Hospital today announced the successful implementation of the most advanced critical care telemedicine program available in hospital intensive care units.

On January 23, St. Mary's partnered with Advanced ICU Care, the nation's largest independent provider of tele-ICU services, to deliver monitoring by highly trained intensivist physicians and critical care specialists 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing an extra layer of care that enhances patient safety. St. Mary's is the first hospital in the SSM Health Care-St. Louis network to partner with Advanced ICU Care in implementing such a program and to meet the latest recommendation to have intensivist physicians monitoring intensive care patients around-the-clock.

"We are pleased to partner with physicians and clinicians at St. Mary's Hospital to provide additional clinical surveillance and support of their critically ill patients," said Mary Jo Gorman, M.D., M.B.A., chief executive officer of Advanced ICU Care. "This strong alliance of critical care expertise combined with the most advanced telemedicine technology is working together to benefit and improve the health and safety of these patients."

Added Bruce Merrell, president of St. Mary's Hospital: "Our patients are receiving the best recommended standard of medical care available with the collaboration between their doctor, the hospital critical care team and the remote telemonitoring oversight of Advanced ICU Care."

Advanced ICU Care's team of intensivists and critical care nurses work remotely around-the-clock complementing the care provided by the St. Mary's Hospital physicians. The program will continuously monitor patient vital signs, medications, labs and the patient's clinical status. Proactive data management tools identify problems before they become urgent, prompting immediate intervention when necessary. Two-way video access in each patient's room enables face-to-face consultations between the bedside and Advanced ICU Care team.

"The Advanced ICU Care team serves as an on-call partner providing a second set of eyes on our ICU patients," said Dr. Rajendra Shroff, internal medicine specialist at St. Mary's Hospital. "This extra layer of care reassures doctors that their sickest patients are vigilantly monitored when they are not present. There is a deep sense of relief knowing that emerging issues are dealt with immediately, and patients are receiving the highest recommended level of care at a moment's notice."

Automated alerts identify problems before they become urgent, prompting immediate intervention. When two-way communication needs to occur between the bedside and Advanced ICU Care team, either party can initiate a two-way video conference. Patients and families benefit from 24/7 access to an intensivist and immediate attention to any emerging health issues.

"Our critical care nurses appreciate the additional care and support of Advanced ICU Care clinicians in helping them to deliver best practices standards they want each of their patients to have," said Tracy Fiscus, Intensive Care Unit Director at St. Mary's. "Patients and their families' responses have been very positive. They welcome the addition of an added care team and having access to a doctor when critical questions arise."

About the St. Mary's Hospital ICU

• The patient rooms are divided into three zones -- a caregiver zone, a patient zone and a family zone. The spacious "family zone" in each of the patient rooms will allow the patients' loved ones to stay in the room with them.
• A decentralized model of nursing care will be implemented in the new unit allowing nurses to be with patients rather than at a centralized station.
• A new Philips cardiac monitoring system will provide state-of-the-art monitoring for critically ill patients. The system consists of 12 bedside monitors and a central viewing station which will provide the following types of monitoring: EKG, Non-Invasive Blood Pressure, SPO2 , End tidal CO2 as well as invasive pressure monitoring for arterial and heart pressures.
• Each patient room will be very user-friendly for the caregiver. MedProx Medication Dispensing Units will be in each room allowing the nurse to dispense routine medications at the bedside without going to another location to obtain the medications.

About Advanced ICU Care
Advanced ICU Care provides comprehensive tele-ICU programs and consulting services. Advanced ICU Care's best-of-breed tele-ICU programs combine experienced intensivist-led care teams, sophisticated telemedicine technology, and a rigorous focus on evidence-based best practices to improve patient care and safety. As the largest independent tele-ICU provider, Advanced ICU Care has a proven track record of improving the clinical, financial and operational performance of its hospital partners. For more information, visit www.icumedicine.com.

Media Contacts:
Angela Peña
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(818) 610-0270

Victoria Woodrow
Victoria_woodrow@ssmhc.com
(618) 241-2210