United States of America - Telemedicine in ICUs may save lives and trim critical care costs

Citation

(2011), "United States of America - Telemedicine in ICUs may save lives and trim critical care costs", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 24 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2011.06224cab.004

United States of America - Telemedicine in ICUs may save lives and trim critical care costs

Article Type: News and views From: International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Volume 24, Issue 3

Keywords: Critical care management, Healthcare expenditure, Healthcare quality improvement

Tele-ICU technology could save 350 additional lives and more than $122 million annually if broadly and effectively implemented across Massachusetts, according to a study from the New England Healthcare Institute and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

“Critical Care, Critical Choices: The Case for Tele-ICUs in Intensive Care” analyzed data collected from a demonstration project at UMass Memorial Medical Center and two community hospitals in Massachusetts. NEHI and MTC studied tele-ICU technology because of its potential to address the supply-and-demand problem plaguing critical care. It comes down to the “collision of two strong trends”, according to the report.

The first is increased demand as seen in the growing numbers and severity of critical care patients (attributable to the aging population). The second is dwindling supply- fewer critical care physicians (or intensivists).

Tele-ICU, a telemedicine technology, provides a potential solution: It allows physicians and nurses who specialize in critical care to monitor a higher volume of ICU patients in multiple, distant locations from a centralized command center.

According to the report, tele-ICUs:

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  Decrease mortality. In the academic medical center, patient ICU mortality decreased by 20 percent and total hospital mortality rates declined by 13 percent.

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  Shorten ICU stays. Patient ICU stays were reduced by 30 percent or an average of two days in the academic medical center. Community hospital stays were also reduced.

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  Save money. Hospitals recovered the up-front investments for tele-ICU in approximately one year. Health insurers saved $2,600 per patient treated in the academic medical center. Tele-ICUs also enable community hospitals to care for a substantial portion of patients who are currently transferred to teaching hospitals. Retaining these patients in community hospitals would save payers approximately $10,000 per case.

The study was limited to Massachusetts, but the findings have national implications, NEHI President Wendy Everett said in an interview.

The problem of an aging population is a national one, she explains. Currently, there are 40 million people over 65 in the country; by 2030 that will jump to 72 million, “and we’ll have tripled the number of folks over 85, thus dramatically increasing the demand for ICU care”. Meanwhile, the shortage of critical care specialists will double nationally – by 2020 we will only have one-half of the critically-trained physicians that we will need.

If we do not make some creative and innovative changes in how we deliver critical care, which accounts for 4.1 percent of our national health expenditures, by 2019 our healthcare costs across the country will be at 20 percent of GDP, she says. “With the aging of the baby boomers, the demand for intensive care is increasing sharply across the U.S. just as the supply of intensive care specialists is declining. Tele-ICUs are a potential solution to this impending national crisis in critical care.”

The report echoes her concerns and issues a call to action: “Now that tele-ICUs have a strong reputation based on clear evidence, we must seize the chance to speed the adoption of this valuable technology in hospitals across the country. We cannot afford to lose this opportunity to improve the quality and control the costs of critical care.”

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