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ST. LOUIS (February 11, 2008) –Advanced ICU Care, a medical service company that connects intensivists (critical care physicians) to hospital ICU patients using telemedicine technology, announced today that it has expanded its ICU patient monitoring program to 24/7 care and monitoring at five of Parkview Health System’s hospitals in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area.
Parkview has designed an intensivist-hospitalist program at the bedside to care for its ICU patients, increasing the amount of bedside support these specialist physicians provide and expanding their in-patient coverage. (Hospitalists are physicians dedicated solely to treating hospitalized patients). Part of this local program, Advanced ICU Care’s intensivists and critical care nurses will now provide around-the-clock care and monitoring for Parkview’s 45 ICU beds, supporting the local physicians and nurses.
Parkview had previously implemented an eICU® program which utilized both Advanced ICU Care’s clinicians in addition to its own intensivists and critical care nurses housed at an internal monitoring center. The hospital system now utilizes Advanced ICU Care’s complete eICU program -- including 24/7 remote monitoring by board-certified intensivists and critical care nurses, telemedicine technology and a process improvement program – to enable Parkview intensivists to spend their time at the patient’s bedside and facilitate the new care initiative.
“We have long used the eICU program to enhance patient care in the ICU, but we’ve developed a way to use it that allows our physicians and nurses to concentrate on providing excellent bedside care, rather than being split between our eICU center and the bedside,” said Julia Walker, BSN, RN, CCRN, hospitalist program manager for Parkview. “We believe this collaboration delivers the best possible care for our patients, providing an extra layer of care with 24/7 remote monitoring as well as expanded care at the bedside by a team of specialists.”
Mary Jo Gorman, M.D., MBA, chief executive officer with Advanced ICU Care, believes that Parkview’s program represents the system’s commitment to quality patient care. “We admire Parkview’s focus on expanding patient access to specialist care, whether at the bedside or through telemedicine technology,” she said. She notes that the technology also helps to support continuous quality improvement efforts by establishing and ensuring best care practices and tracking results – features critically important to hospitals seeking to provide the highest quality care for their patients.
Advanced ICU Care now delivers its eICU program to 89 ICU beds located in eight hospitals across four states. Given the nationwide shortage of intensivists and clear data on improved patient outcomes associated with intensivist care, the company expects to continue to expand its program throughout the country.
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 eICU Operations Center in St. Louis, Missouri through a technology platform developed by VISICU, 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. Founded to improve access to critical care expertise, deliver best practices to patients by leveraging telemedicine technology, and establish intensivists as the standard of care, the Advanced ICU Care program delivers around-the-clock critical care specialists, dramatically improving patient care. For more information, visit: www.icumedicine.com
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eICU® is a registered trademark of VISICU, Inc.