AMSTERDAM, Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- As the adoption and
growth of intensive care unit (ICU) telemedicine increases, more
research is being conducted to analyze operational factors that
affect patient outcomes. Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) offers the eICU
telemedicine program that combines technology and clinical
processes to improve outcomes. Philips points to a new study in
CHEST that reveals the level of intervention by eICU providers was
associated with shorter ICU lengths of stay (LOS).
The study examined how eICU and bedside clinical teams at a
major health system worked to deliver care. Results of the study
show ICUs that were more fully integrated with the remote team were
associated with shorter lengths of ICU and hospital stays,
suggesting that more teamwork and direct intervention allows for
quicker patient intervention to manage evolving instability and
prevent complications.
"As health systems seek to better manage their populations to
improve outcomes while lowering costs, telemedicine offers a way to
continuously monitor patients even as we face a shortage of
healthcare providers," said Brian
Rosenfeld, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Hospital to Home,
Philips. "Studies like this one demonstrate what we have known for
years, which is that the value of leveraging a centralized
telemedicine care model, based on leading Philips technology and
program design, standardizes workflows and delivers the improved
LOS outcomes when the on-site and remote teams are working together
to support patient care."
The retrospective, comparative study entitled, "ICU Telemedicine
Co-Management Methods and Length of Stay," analyzed 14,362 adult
patients who were discharged from eight adult medical and surgical
ICUs from a single health care system in 2012. Each of the eight
participating units were classified into one of three ICU
telemedicine co-management groups based on how the remote eICU and
bedside teams worked together: 1) direct intervention from the eICU
staff with timely communication to the bedside team; 2) monitoring
from the remote eICU with notification to the bedside team of the
need for intervention; and 3) a mix of both of these methods.
The study found more direct remote eICU physician intervention
resulted in significantly shorter ICU lengths of stay. Because the
direct intervention model encourages eICU intensivists to deliver
care to the patient at the time it is needed, this model had the
largest ratio of remote eICU physician orders (11 per patient
stay). Meanwhile, the monitor and notify approach averaged less
than one eICU physician order per patient stay, as care delivery
was primarily assumed by the bedside staff. The direct
intervention group had an ICU LOS that was 42% less than predicted
by Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE), while
the monitor and notify group was only 18% less than predicted by
APACHE (p < 0.001). For hospital length of stay, the
direct intervention group was 32% less than predicted by APACHE,
while the monitor and notify group was 17% less than predicted by
APACHE (p < 0.001).
The severity of the patient's condition did not explain these
results, as the monitor and notify group had significantly lower
levels of acuity (APACHE IV score of 59.27) than the direct
intervention group (APACHE IV score of 64.02). Despite this, both
the raw and acuity adjusted lengths of stay were significantly
shorter for the direct intervention group.
"Telemedicine has the power to improve care, but not all
telemedicine is created equally," said Dr. Craig Lilly, M.D., Professor of Medicine,
Anesthesiology and Surgery at the University
of Massachusetts Medical School and Director of the eICU
Program at UMass Memorial Medical Center. "Technology alone cannot
transform how healthcare works – it's about empowering those who
deliver care. This study showed that changing workflows to make the
off-site eICU telemedicine team a core part of the treatment team
was critical to changing outcomes."
The study was co-authored by Helen
Hawkins, Ph.D., Senior Product Owner at Philips Hospital to
Home, Craig M. Lilly, M.D.,
Professor of Medicine, Anesthesiology and Surgery at the
University of Massachusetts Medical
School and Director of the eICU Program at UMass Memorial
Medical Center, David A. Kaster, IT
BI Integration Senior Consultant at Banner Health, Robert H. Groves, Jr., M.D., Vice President of
Health Management at Banner Health and Hargobind Khurana, M.D., Senior Medical Director
at Banner Health.
The Philips eICU program is part of a suite of enterprise
telemedicine solutions delivered by Philips to help improve
outcomes, provide better value and expand access to care. These
programs help address multiple cohorts within a population ranging
from highest cost patients with intensive ambulatory care and acute
needs, to discharge transition and chronic patient management, to
prevention and healthy living for the general population.
These programs use a proactive care model to clinically transform
the delivery of care to address growing clinician shortages while
helping to improve patient outcomes.
For more information on the full suite of Philips clinical
telemedicine programs, visit
www.hospitaltohome.philips.com.
For further information, please contact:
Kathy O'Reilly
Philips Group Communications
(o) 978-659-2638 (m) 978-221-8919
Kathy.oreilly@philips.com
Twitter: @kathyoreilly
About Royal Philips
Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX:
PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving
people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health
continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis,
treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and
deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated
solutions. Headquartered in the
Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging,
image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as
well as in consumer health and home care. Philips' health
technology portfolio generated 2015 sales of EUR 16.8 billion and employs approximately 70,000
employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News
about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter.
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SOURCE Royal Philips