Avera eICU CARE
Remote monitoring for an extra level of care.
When it comes to critical care, the more people watching over you while you're in the hospital, the better. With Avera eICU technology, bedside physicians and nurses collaborate with off-site specialists. Monitoring your progress 24/7, to identify early warning signs and respond more quickly. So you can get right back on the road to recovery.
State-of-the-art equipment provides patients an extra level of care in the intensive care unit, and many times that means helping to save lives.
How It Works
Avera eICU CARE acts like an air traffic control room. From an operations center on the Avera McKennan Hospital campus in Sioux Falls, S.D., specially trained physicians, or intensivists, who specialize in caring for critically ill patients, and critical care nurses constantly monitor patient conditions at numerous Avera sites through several computers and powerful, real-time cameras.
Information such as patients' vital signs, medications, x-rays and test results are sent to the operations center via secure, high-speed data lines. Computers continuously analyze the information, helping the intensivists recognize changes in patient conditions. This allows for early intervention through coordination with on-site ICU physicians and nurses before significant problems arise.
Technology Leader
Avera believes the absolute best ICU technology should be available to hospital patients throughout the region. Avera eICU Care brings the latest in telemedicine and ICU care to patients by connecting critical care experts to multiple ICU patients in the Avera system.
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Avera eICU® CARE Mosaic Display
Avera eICU CARE launched on Sept. 21, 2004. Each tile in this display represents the life of an individual who was not predicted to live, but left the hospital alive because of the level of care made possible through this advanced technology and the quality of care provided by Avera. The many faces in each tile represent the family and caregivers supporting the individual.
Helping Patients And Families
For patients with certain diagnoses, Avera eICU CARE also helps alleviate the financial, physical and emotional burden that transferring to larger cities to receive advanced care can create.
Some of the improvements Avera eICU CARE allows for include:
- Avera eICU CARE staff can quickly assist on-site critical care staff with changes in patient conditions.
- Innovative software evaluates patient data for important trends, helping staff to react to patient condition changes.
- While the on-site physician is still in charge of ICU patient care, Avera eICU CARE provides an additional level of support to significantly improve patient safety.
- Innovative technology improves physician workflow and communication with other critical care staff.
Networked Regional Healthcare
The Avera eICU® connects many of our facilities throughout the region, including:
Connecting our patients and physicians across the region allows for a higher level of care.
Avera eICU® CARE is a quantum leap in ICU telemedicine.
Avera Marshall “Innovation of the Year” Winner
Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center recently received the 2006 “Innovation of the Year in Patient Care for Rural Hospitals” Award for its work in bringing Avera eICU®CARE to the region. The honor was one of 15 individual and group awards bestowed by the Minnesota Hospital Association at its annual program to recognize caregivers, administrators, volunteers and others whose standout contributions improve health care across the state. To date, nearly 100 patients have received care at Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center with Avera eICU®CARE, many of whom would otherwise have had to transfer out of the community.
Avera Holy Family Health Offers eICU Care to Patients
On Wednesday, March 1, 2007, Avera Holy Family Health became Iowa's first health care facility to offer eICU® patient safety technology.
The state-of-the-art equipment provides patients an extra level of care in the intensive care unit, and many times that means helping to save lives. Avera Holy Family Health is the ninth member of the Avera Health system to join the Avera eICU® CARE program. The innovative technology continues to prove its value to patients. In a recent three-month study, the nine Avera eICU CARE facilities contributed to a 30 percent decrease in predicted hospital mortality for ICU patients and reduced predicted ICU length of stay time by 23 percent.
Additional Information
eICU® is a registered trademark of Visicu, Inc.
The eICU solution is available from VISICU, Inc., a company founded by two intensivist physicians who recognized a need for increasing intensive care quality and resources. For more information about eICU® technology, please visit www.visicu.com.