August 23, 2007 – Advanced ICU Care, a company that connects critical care medicine physicians and nurses to hospital intensive care units via telemedicine, said it is partnering with St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho to provide 24/7 monitoring for the hospital's ICU patients, in collaboration with St. Alphonsus’ local medical and nursing staffs.
The medical center will begin using Advanced ICU Care’s eICU program later this year to help support the hospital’s intensive care unit. The unit will open with 22 beds, with the ability to grow to 32. The eICU program allows Advanced ICU Care’s intensivists and critical care nurses, located at the company’s Operations Center in St. Louis, to care for patients from afar using clinical management software combined with patient data and video capabilities. St. Alphonsus also plans to extend these capabilities to hospitals throughout Idaho, leveraging telemedicine to extend clinical expertise, providing greater access to highly specialized care and technologies, and offering an expanded network of clinical services.
Advanced ICU Care intensivists and critical care nurses will provide continuous remote care and monitoring for patients seven days a week, 24 hours a day, supporting the local intensivist and critical care nursing teams which staff the ICU. They will also assist with operating the hospital’s InTouch remote presence robotic systems. This will be in place at St. Alphonsus and other community hospitals to improve access to specialty care and state-of-the art technologies, as well as enhance the quality of care. The robotic systems will allow Advanced ICU Care’s intensivists to help round on critically ill patients, speak with family members and consult with the local medical staff.
Through a TATRC (Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center) grant, St. Alphonsus will use telemedicine to deliver different types of specialists, including intensivists, to hospitals in the greater community.
“We are excited to explore all the possibilities of using this quality-driven technology to enable us to expand the expertise of intensivists throughout the rural states of Idaho and Oregon,” said Michael J. Ward, CHE, executive director, corporate development at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. “We look forward to working with such a high-quality medical service company as Advanced ICU Care has proven to be. This is a great example of private and government sectors working together to improve the quality and efficiencies of healthcare in our communities.”
“St. Alphonsus has continued to focus on applying innovative technologies to deliver the best possible care, and we look forward to our collaboration with the hospital and our partnership with the local intensivists, pulmonologists and nursing staff to provide the highest level of care and safety for patients in the ICU,” said Mary Jo Gorman, MD, MBA, chief executive officer of Advanced ICU Care. “We admire the hospital’s ongoing efforts to expand access to specialized care to patients both within and outside the hospital.”
Advanced ICU Care’s eICU program, which will be in place in eight hospitals throughout the U.S., has helped improve patient care and safety in the ICU. One hospital noted a 24 percent reduction in patient mortality after using the eICU program for one year, while cardiac arrests dropped nearly 70 percent. The program also helps deliver best practice standards and continuous process improvement in the ICU and across the continuum of care.
In more rural communities, the eICU program is also being used to help leverage scarce critical care resources. With just 6,000 intensivists in the U.S., demand is expected to outstrip supply, and this shortfall is projected to worsen given the aging U.S. population.
For more information: www.icumedicine.com
April 09, 2024 
