Continued from Page 1

The equipment, made by a 6-year-old Baltimore company called VISICU, is installed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, and Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health.

VISICU describes the eICU as a “mission control” operation, in which eICU team members sit like air traffic controllers in front of a bank of monitors. Besides watching for anomalies that require emergency intervention, the eICU team also follows predefined procedures ordered up by the patient’s tending physician.

The eICU team also makes decisions from online, evidence-based care guidelines that aid physicians and nurses in decision-making.

Janine Mazabob, RN, an eICU team member at Memorial Hermann, said the nurses trained to work with the eICU are excited to have a single resource for medication history, white blood cell count trends, and blood pressure for each patient. “It really is an additional tool for them,” Mazabob said.

Studies point to some dramatic results for facilities with eICUs. In a Critical Care Medicine article, the six-hospital Sentara Healthcare system in Norfolk, Va., reported a 27% reduction in mortality for ICU patients, a 17% decrease in ICU length of stay, and a savings of $2,150 per patient — or $3 million above program costs — since incorporating the eICU program in 2000.

Another supplemental article to the Critical Care Medicine study cautioned that the eICU program should not replace the remote intensivist model as the “ideal” above a bedside specialist, because it may introduce roadblocks to family communication and ICU teamwork.

“These barriers can perhaps be overcome by collaboration in the development of patient care protocols, the rotation of staff through the e-ICU, and communication with the family by on-site personnel,” wrote Carolyn Bekes, MD, of Cooper Health System and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Camden, N.J.

In at least one case at Memorial Hermann, Mazabob said, a teenager’s mother was actually reassured of her son’s safety when they explained the vigilant monitoring available. Many of Memorial Hermann’s critical care nurses also are more comfortable working with the system.

Critical care nurses know that “ICUs are needing to put more junior nurses in there,” Mazabob said. “And now you know you’ve got a safety net.”

To comment on this story, send e-mail to editorsc@nurseweek.com.