Aurora spends $6 million on ICU monitoring technology Baltimore firm provides 'extra set of eyes' on sickest hospital patients April 16th, 2004 By Phill Trewyn Aurora Health Care will spend about $6 million over three years to implement technology that allows for 24-hour monitoring of patients in the health care system's intensive care units. Aurora will be the first health care system in the state to implement such technology, said Dr. Nick Turkal, senior clinical vice president at Aurora. "This technology will provide an extra set of eyes on the sickest patients at all times," Turkal said. The technology, called the eICU® system, was developed by VISICU, Inc., Baltimore, and provides trend data on a patient's condition with the goal of preventing complications before they develop. The data is monitored by a nurse or physician at a remote site capable of monitoring multiple locations. The system is expected to be implemented at Aurora by fall and will initially monitor 50 beds in intensive care units at St. Luke's Medical Center and Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee as well as Aurora Medical Center in Kenosha. Turkal said plans call for the off-site monitoring facility to be located at Aurora's Airport Diagnostic Center, 180 W. Grange Ave., on Milwaukee's south side. A physician, nurse and secretary will initially staff the monitoring site. Aurora will add more staff "as we add more beds to the system," Turkal said. Aurora operates 14 hospitals with more than 200 intensive care beds throughout eastern Wisconsin. Additional locations will be added to the eICU® system in 2005 and 2006. TRACKING THE MONITORS Aurora management decided to implement the system after observing how it worked in other health care systems the past four years, Turkal said. The system's ability to track a patient's condition and reveal the beginnings of complications helps reduce mortality rates up to 25 percent in intensive care units using the system, Turkal said. "That's just hugh," he said. The system also reduces patient stays by almost 18 percent in intensive care units, which ultimately reduces cost to the patient, Turkal said. Representatives of Columbia St. Mary's Hospital System on Milwaukee's east side have held discussions with VISICU abou implementing eICU®, although no contract has been sign, said a spokeswoman for the hospital system. Rather than implement such technology, Covenant Healthcare System Inc., West Allis, which operates four hospitals in the metro area, is focusing on expanding the number of intensive care specialists, or Intensivists, on its staff, said a Covenant spokeswoman. A shortage of intensive care specialists is what led Dr. Michael Breslow and Dr. Brian Rosenfeld to start VISICU in 1998. The two specialists worked in the adult critical care department at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for more than 20 years prior to starting VISICU. "We wanted to use technology to leverage the available Intensivists so more patients could be monitored," said Breslow, executive vice president for clinical research at VISICU. Breslow said that system was developed for intensive care units because that is where the sickest patients in a hospital are located. "Intensive care patients can have complications that develop suddenly and impact their condition. The quicker you're able to detect those complications, the more success you'll have at treating them," Breslow said. HIGHER-LEVEL CARE The 24-hour monitoring provided by the eICU® system provides a higher level of care than would otherwise be available, Breslow said. VISICU has nearly 80 employees and is owned by several private equity firms. Breslow declined to reveal annual revenue, but said it is growing 200 percent annually. "There's a growing recognition that quality of care is important and that makes this kind of a system a much easier sell," Breslow said. Other companies are developing similar technology, which wasn't the case when VISICU first launched, Breslow said.