Remote intensive care that's more intensive
The eICU actually may be superior in some ways. Visicu's software, for example, can give eICU doctors early warning of a possible problem by tracking trends. If the heart rate, say, begins to trend gradually up or down, says Ikeda, "that is an alert to us to start looking at that patient." The eICU gets high marks from nurses, too. "In the nursing world," explains Kathy Beddingfield, chief ICU nurse at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston, "when you need a physician immediately, you have to go through the whole process of paging them. Even five minutes in a critical situation seems like so long. With the eICU, we simply pick up the phone and say, 'Hey, I need your help,' and they camera in right away."
This is not outsourcing--the eICUs are almost always staffed by the hospitals' own physicians and nurses. Still, not all physicians like the idea. Some doctors at Inova Health System, a five-hospital group in Northern Virginia, distrust the technology and others fear losing control, says William Hazel, a surgeon at Inova Fair Oaks Hospital in Fairfax helping to usher in an eICU. "They think you're messing with their patients," he says.
Ikeda has run into this before. "Physicians who complain seem to think that Big Brother will be taking care of their patients," he says, dismissing the notion with a laugh. "I am too busy to be Big Brother. I have 104 other patients." -Rob Turner
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