2008 Woodie Awards
Del. doctors monitor rural Maryland patients via video
Courtney Zantz
Issue date: 5/20/08 Section: News
Patients at six rural Maryland hospitals will now be monitored by the Christiana Care Health System's eCare Program, which began in November 2005. Doctors and nurses at the Christiana and Wilmington campuses monitor intensive care unit patients in remote locations by computer.
Anita Witzke, nurse manager and clinical operations director at the Christiana campus, said this is the first time a third-party payer, insurer CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, is giving a grant of $3 million over three years to these hospitals in Maryland. The hospitals are smaller than Christiana Hospital and most do not have intensivists, or nurses who specialize in treating intensive-care patients.
Now, they will be able to tap into Christiana's critical care resources, Witzke said.
"In a traditional ICU, a patient would come in and an intensivist would be assigned to take care of the patient," Witzke said. "The intensivist would care for the patient from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., and if the patient needed care at night, a physician would need to be called."
She said besides having an intensivist on site with the patient, there are nurses located in a remote location across the street from the hospital, who sit in front of a computer desk with five screens. Each screen has different information and takes in each patient's data.
"These nurses are constantly monitoring to see if patients are in danger and if they aren't sure what the data is showing, they can turn on a camera and actually see the patient," Witzke said.
She said if a sick patient needs a physician, it can take up to one hour for a nurse to get in touch with a doctor. This new program will speed up the process.
"A nurse can hit a button to see the patient from a camera and eliminate the steps telling the doctor over the phone what is wrong with the patient," Witzke said.
Nurses in remote locations can see up to 150 patients several times each night, instead of a handful during a normal shift, she said.
Anita Witzke, nurse manager and clinical operations director at the Christiana campus, said this is the first time a third-party payer, insurer CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, is giving a grant of $3 million over three years to these hospitals in Maryland. The hospitals are smaller than Christiana Hospital and most do not have intensivists, or nurses who specialize in treating intensive-care patients.
Now, they will be able to tap into Christiana's critical care resources, Witzke said.
"In a traditional ICU, a patient would come in and an intensivist would be assigned to take care of the patient," Witzke said. "The intensivist would care for the patient from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., and if the patient needed care at night, a physician would need to be called."
She said besides having an intensivist on site with the patient, there are nurses located in a remote location across the street from the hospital, who sit in front of a computer desk with five screens. Each screen has different information and takes in each patient's data.
"These nurses are constantly monitoring to see if patients are in danger and if they aren't sure what the data is showing, they can turn on a camera and actually see the patient," Witzke said.
She said if a sick patient needs a physician, it can take up to one hour for a nurse to get in touch with a doctor. This new program will speed up the process.
"A nurse can hit a button to see the patient from a camera and eliminate the steps telling the doctor over the phone what is wrong with the patient," Witzke said.
Nurses in remote locations can see up to 150 patients several times each night, instead of a handful during a normal shift, she said.
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