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For Immediate Release
ST. LOUIS (Dec. 5, 2006) ––Advanced ICU Care, a medical service company that connects critical care physicians (intensivists) to hospital ICU patients using telemedicine technology, announced today that it has begun monitoring ICU patients at five of Parkview Health System’s hospitals in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Beginning Friday evening, Dec. 1, Advanced ICU Care joined Parkview’s team of intensivists to provide around-the-clock care and monitoring for up to 50 ICU patients in the constant care units at Parkview Huntington Hospital and Parkview Noble Hospital, the critical care units at Parkview Whitley Hospital and Parkview North Hospital, and the coronary and medical ICU at Parkview Hospital.
The five Parkview Health System hospitals have already implemented the eICU® solution, which uses telemedicine and remote computer monitoring to connect hospital ICU patients and their bedside care providers to a centralized monitoring facility staffed by intensivists and critical care nurses. Parkview uses Advanced ICU Care’s board-certified intensivists – who will care for patients from the company’s eICU Operations Center in St. Louis – in addition to its own intensivists and critical care nurses to extend eICU services to patients seven days a week.
“With the nationwide shortage of intensivists, many hospitals, including Parkview, have found it difficult to recruit as many intensivists as needed,” said Chris Stroud, M.D., MBA, chief medical officer, Parkview Hospital and Parkview North Hospital. “Partnering with Advanced ICU Care allows us to provide continuous intensivist care for our sickest patients, utilizing our existing eICU technology, to help enhance patient care and safety.”
Studies show that care by intensivists, either at the bedside or through telemedicine technology, greatly improves the quality of care in the ICU. According to a study published in Critical Care Medicine, care by intensivists using eICU technology shows a 27% reduction in patient mortality and a 17% decrease in ICU length of stay.
In addition to providing intensivists through ICU monitoring, Advanced ICU Care also provides hospitals with a full package of quality improvement processes and guidance, helping hospitals to achieve crucial quality improvement initiatives.
“Advanced ICU Care’s process improvement model was key in selecting the company to provide additional intensivist care,” said Dr. Stroud. “Their quality focus will further help our hospitals in implementing best care practices for our patients, improving ICU performance and increasing operational efficiencies.”
“We are pleased to offer our intensivist services to Parkview to help augment the hospitals’ existing intensivist and critical care nursing staff,” said Mary Jo Gorman, M.D., MBA, chief executive officer of Advanced ICU Care. “Our focus is connecting critical care specialists to hospital ICU patients to enhance their care and safety. Clearly, this is Parkview’s focus, too. We applaud the system’s many initiatives to provide the highest quality care for its patients, and we are excited to work with them.”
With the addition of Parkview Health System, Advanced ICU Care now provides intensivist care and monitoring for 72 ICU beds at facilities in Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin.
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 a technology platform developed by VISICU, local hospital ICUs are linked with Advanced ICU Care’s eICU® Operations Center in St. Louis, Missouri. This operations center is staffed by highly trained, board-certified intensivists (critical care medicine physicians) and critical care nurses who together have cared for more than 30,000 patients. Collectively, Advanced ICU Care’s medical staff brings more than 75 years of clinical experience as well as expertise in hospital compliance initiatives, educational programs, and the development and implementation of protocol and care pathways.
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eICU® is a registered trademark of VISICU, Inc.