[telemedicine] Pennsylvania Hospitals Benefit from Use of Remote ICU Monitoring

[Medical Informatics News]

A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer looked at a remote intensive-care monitoring system that the
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) implemented last month.
The system, Visicu eICU, allows doctors and critical care nurses to
monitor patients in real time at HUP’s intensive care*department which includes a surgical ICU and also at three
medical ICUs at a separate facility, Pennsylvania Hospital. According
to Dr. C. William Hanson, medical director for the eICU project, the Penn health system spent $3 million for the
technology at HUP and Pennsylvania Hospital, and intends to allocate another $1 million to wire Presbyterian Medical
Center. The article reports that Sentara Norfolk
General Hospital in Virginia began using an eICU system in 2000, which has reduced mortality among ICU patients and
also decreased the length of hospital stay. Remote ICU monitoring is recommended by the
Leapfrog Group, an initiative driven by major corporations that buy
healthcare coverage for their employees, who are working to initiate improvements in the safety, quality and
affordability of healthcare.

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