Electronic ICU to serve 8 hospitals December 16th, 2002 BY JIM RITTER It's described as an air traffic control center for medicine. Doctors and nurses at an "electronic ICU" in Oak Brook will help direct patient care at ICUs in eight Advocate hospitals in the city and suburbs. Each bed will have a high-resolution video camera, microphone and speaker, enabling specialists in the e-ICU to see and talk to patients, doctors and nurses miles away in the hospital ICU. The bedside camera will turn on when activated by a nurse, or during the e-ICU doctor's "virtual rounds." At all other times, it will be aimed at the wall. And no sound or video will be recorded. Data such as blood pressure, pulse and heart rhythm will be sent instantaneously to the e-ICU. Computers will analyze the information and alert doctors if something is amiss, such as a rapid heartbeat. Patient data will be secure and confidential, according to Visicu Inc., which will build the e-ICU. Each hospital ICU will have a red telephone hotline to the e-ICU. When a doctor or nurse picks up the phone, it will ring in the e-ICU, without dialing. Advocate said it won't reduce staffing at patients' bedsides. Rather, the goal is to improve care by making specialists immediately available around the clock. At most ICUs, doctors are available only on-call at night. Advocate's ICU doctors still will be on-call and come in when necessary to perform procedures such as implanting pacemakers. The e-ICU will reduce deaths, complications and length of stay, said Dr. Lee Sacks, chief medical officer of Advocate Health Care. "It's an extra set of eyes and ears that can keep patients on the right track." Advocate will become the second hospital network in the country to install Visicu's e-ICU. The first is the six-hospital Centara network in Norfolk, Va. Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., is testing the system. Two Advocate hospitals, Lutheran General in Park Ridge and Good Shepherd in Barrington, will go online in April. By early 2004, Advocate expects to hook up its other six hospitals: Christ in Oak Lawn, South Suburban in Hazel Crest, Good Samaritan in Downers Grove, and Bethany, Illinois Masonic and Trinity in Chicago. The e-ICU will oversee 212 ICU beds. During each 12-hour shift, the e-ICU will have two or three board-certified critical-care doctors, four or five ICU nurses and clerical staff. The e-ICU will cost about $10 million to build and $3 million a year to operate. Advocate expects it to more than pay for itself with cost savings such as shorter stays. Since Medicare and Medicaid typically pay flat fees for various conditions, Advocate has an incentive to reduce costs. Doctors and nurses will shift back and forth between the e-ICU and hospital ICUs. The e-ICU doctors will have privileges at all eight hospitals and the right to prescribe treatments. If the hospital and e-ICU doctors disagree, the bedside doctor will have the final say.