Advanced ICU Care Partner Winchester Medical Center
Describes Need for Tele-ICU
Valley Health’s flagship hospital Winchester Medical Center was faced with a challenge common to many hospitals nationwide: increased demand for intensivists and a recruiting effort that proved to be a drain on resources with few results. In searching for a solution Valley Health turned to Advanced ICU Care for a tele-ICU care solution. In the three years Advanced ICU Care has partnered with Valley Health clinicians at Winchester Medical Center have realized multiple operational and clinical benefits.
Recently Dr. T. Glen Bouder, Director of Critical Care for Winchester Medical Center, spoke with Modern Healthcare reporter Jessica Kim Cohen to discuss the hospital’s journey to utilizing tele-ICU and detail some of its key benefits. “We were faced with a demand for intensivist services and a slow and challenging rate of recruitment of physicians,” said Dr. Bouder. Cohen reported “That (a lack of intensivists) put a strain on the hospital’s limited ICU staff… Staff often had to allocate their attention toward admissions and ‘putting out fires’ in the ICU, rather than actively managing the other beds and preparing patients for discharge as soon as possible.”
In addition to relieving staffing concerns, the hospital realized significant improvements in outcomes. Cohen highlights, “In Winchester Medical Center’s first year using tele-ICU services, the hospital reduced its ICU mortality rate by 32% compared with outcomes predicted by the version of the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation it uses, known as APACHE IVa. The hospital reduced its ICU length of stay by 34%.”
Advanced ICU Care partners with Winchester Medical Center and more than 90 other hospitals nationwide to support outstanding care for their most critically ill patients with a comprehensive and flexible technology-enable care model.
