Health First hospitals to offer eICU® technology November 24th, 2003 Hospital stays in Brevard County may get shorter and safer for intensive care unit patients starting next summer, thanks to a new technology. Hospitals owned by Health First Inc. -- Holmes Regional Medical Center, Cape Canaveral Hospital and Palm Bay Community -- will be the first in the Southeast to offer a new type of technology to help care for critical care patients. Known as eICU®, the new system is combination of telemedicine, software and electronic monitoring technology. It will allow Health First's critical care doctors and nurses to monitor intensive care unit patients while off-site. They will monitor the patients through a high-fidelity telemedicine network that has been compared to air traffic control. It uses in-room cameras and screens that show vital sign data, lab results and complete electronic medical records. The technology will help decrease patient complications and death rates, and will allow patients to have shorter hospital stays, says Dr. James Palermo, vice president of quality management and chief quality officer for Health First. Dr. Brian Rosenfeld and Dr. Michael Breslow, both from Johns Hopkins University, developed the telemedicine concept in 1997 and formed Visicu Inc., a Maryland-based company that installs the eICU® workstations. The workstations consist of four video monitors and a telephone. All Health First facilities will have the new technology installed by next summer.