(Image courtesy of Royal Philips)
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (Lebanon, N.H.) has agreed to implement Royal Philips’ (NYSE: PHG) eICU program technology. The program aims to help reduce mortality, length of stay, and ventilation days while providing care to patients wherever they are located.
Philips’ eICU is a tele-ICU program that will link specialists at the health system’s flagship hospital, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, N.H., with the patient’s local hospital. Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s program will start with medical, surgical, and neurology intensive care units at DHMC, along with the intensive care unit at Cheshire Medical Center. The program’s tele-ICU hub will also be located at DHMC, where it will leverage Philips’ IntelliSpace eCareManager, the program’s source-agnostic software, providing clinicians with a single integrated view of patient data.
Philips’ eICU program combines predictive analytics, data visualization and advanced reporting capabilities to deliver vital information to bedside caregivers. By receiving this remote support, the bedside team may make better-informed, more efficient, and more effective value-based care decisions, according to Philips.
“As New Hampshire’s only tertiary care medical facility, demand for our services is high,” said Dartmouth-Hitchcock chief clinical officer Edward Merrens, M.D. in a prepared statement. “The use of telemedicine across the D-HH system and around the region aligns with our mission of providing the best care in the appropriate setting, whether it be at DHMC or at the patient’s local hospital with the support of Dartmouth-Hitchcock specialists.”
Only 47% of ICUs in U.S. hospitals currently employ full-time intensivists, a number that is expected to continue to drop, according to a study by the Leapfrog Group.
“For Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the tele-ICU program will help their clinicians better serve their patient population while eliminating the need to travel to get that level of specialized care,” said Felix Baader, business leader of monitoring analytics at Philips. “This same technology can also help health systems better manage physician burnout, or in other cases, capacity management.”
