Winter 2007 Email Newsletter

Our People

Dr. Dellice Dickhaus to present published abstract at SCCM's 36th Critical Care Congress

Dr. Dellice Dickhaus, eICU medical director, will be on hand at the Society of Critical Care Medicine's 36th Critical Care Congress to present and discuss her recently published abstract, titled "Delivering intensivist services to patients in multiple states using telemedicine." Dr. Dickhaus will have a poster presentation at the annual meeting, which will be held February 17 - 21 at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Dr. Isabelle Kopec named Healthcare Hero finalist

Dr. Isabelle Kopec, vice president of clinical services and a co-founder of Advanced ICU Care, was recently recognized by the St. Louis Business Journal as one of its Healthcare Hero finalists. Dr. Kopec was honored in the Healthcare Innovation category for her efforts to bring around-the-clock care and monitoring to ICU patients in community hospitals. She was chosen as a finalist from more than 100 nominations.

Advanced ICU Care welcomes four new intensivists

Beginning early this year, four new intensivists will join Advanced ICU Care to deliver care and monitoring for up to 72 ICU patients in hospitals in Missouri, Wisconsin and Indiana. This will bring to 13 the number of intensivists, ensuring full physician coverage as Advanced ICU Care continues to grow.

Our Hospital Partners

Advanced ICU Care's eICU program at St. Mary's and Saint Clare's continues to outperform in patient care and safety measures

For the quarter ending September 2006, our eICU program at St. Mary's and Saint Clare's performed as well or better than other eICU facilities in all seven major ICU performance benchmark criteria. Overall, our eICU ranked No. 2 in the performance benchmark measures among all 26 reporting eICU centers.

One best practice, DVT prophylaxis (deep vein thrombosis), outperformed by the largest margin, reaching close to 85% compliance rates, nearly 20% higher compliance than other eICU facilities. Additionally, our eICU program was the only reporting eICU to achieve 90% or more compliance in stress ulcer prophylaxis.

St. Mary's Health Center sees VAP bundle results

Since inception in early 2006, the eICU program at St. Mary's Health Center has seen measurable results with the Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP) bundle. The bundle includes four key measures for the prevention of VAP including DVT prophylaxis, head-of-bed elevation, stress ulcer prophylaxis and sedation vacation. St. Mary's sedation vacation and weaning assessment strategy has seen the most dramatic results, rising to 85% compliance, due in large part to continuous monitoring and close collaboration between the local bedside staff and Advanced ICU Care intensivists and nurses.

Advanced ICU Care extends intensivist services to Parkview

Beginning December 1, Advanced ICU Care joined Parkview Health System's team of intensivists to provide care and monitoring for up to 50 ICU patients in five Parkview hospitals. Through the previously implemented eICU® solution, Advanced ICU Care's board-certified intensivists, together with Parkview intensivists and critical care nurses, now extend eICU services to patients seven days a week.

Saint Clare's provides new cardiac services

Saint Clare's Hospital opened two cardiac units in late 2006, enabling it to serve cardiac patients who were previously being sent to a nearby hospital. Most recently, Saint Clare's opened the doors on its new interventional cath lab. In October, Saint Clare's began providing elective open heart surgeries in its new cardiovascular operating rooms.

In the News

"Advanced ICU Care proved a good fit for addressing Saint Clare Hospital's ICU needs. The...hospital no longer has to send patients to sister hospitals with on-site intensivist coverage," says Dr. Richard Bailey, medical director of Inpatient Care and Hospitalist Services. "ICU mortality, after adjusting for Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) scores and other severity indices, is also below predicted numbers. Partnering with Advanced ICU Care has also helped recruitment of younger hospitalists, Bailey says, noting that hospitalists have chosen Saint Clare's over other hospitals because of the eICU presence." (The Hospitalist, "X-ray has left the building," December 2006).

"Caring for the critically ill is Dr. Isabelle Kopec's passion. A pioneering member of a relatively new and still relatively small medical subspecialty - intensivist - Kopec is using telemedicine to increase the survival rates of the sickest of the sick.

Melinda Clark, SSM DePaul Health Center's president, described Kopec as 'an outstanding bedside physician, a respected leader and a true healthcare innovator.'"
(St. Louis Business Journal, "Health-Care Heroes: Dr. Isabelle Kopec; Delivering critical care in person and through 'telemedicine,'" October 6, 2006)

About Us

"Advanced ICU Care proved a good fit for addressing Saint Clare Hospital's ICU needs. The...hospital no longer has to send patients to sister hospitals with on-site intensivist coverage," says Dr. Richard Bailey, medical director of Inpatient Care and Hospitalist Services. "ICU mortality, after adjusting for Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) scores and other severity indices, is also below predicted numbers. Partnering with Advanced ICU Care has also helped recruitment of younger hospitalists, Bailey says, noting that hospitalists have chosen Saint Clare's over other hospitals because of the eICU presence." (The Hospitalist, "X-ray has left the building," December 2006).