Tele ICU: paradox or panacea?

Sapirstein, Adam; Lone, Nazir; Latif, Asad; Fackler, James; Pronovost, Peter J.

doi:10.1016/j.bpa.2009.02.001

« Previous Next »Best Practice & Research Clinical Anaesthesiology
Volume 23, Issue 1 , Pages 115-126, March 2009

Tele ICU: paradox or panacea?

Adam Sapirstein, MD (Assistant Professor)
- Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
- Corresponding author. Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Halsted 842B, Baltimore, MD 21287-7294, USA. Tel.: +1 410 614 9920; Fax: +1 410 614 1776.
Nazir Lone, MD (Patient Safety Scholar)
- The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
- Current address: The University of Missouri-Columbia, One Hospital Drive, 65201, MO, USA.
Asad Latif, MD (Instructor)
- Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
James Fackler, MD (Associate Professor)
- Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
Peter J. Pronovost, MD, PhD (Professor, Departments of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Surgery, and Health Policy and Management, Medical Director, Center for Innovations in Quality Patient Care, Director, Quality and Safety Research Group)
- Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA

Telemedicine has been studied in the intensive care unit for several decades, but many questions remain unanswered regarding the costs and the benefits of its application. Telemedicine ICU (Tele-ICU) is an electronic means to link physical ICUs to another location which assists in medical decision making. Given the shortage of intensive care physicians in the US, Tele-ICU systems could be an efficient mechanism for physicians to manage a larger number of critical care patients. This chapter will examine the current state of telemedicine in an age of rapidly expanding medical information technology and increasing demand for intensive care services. While we believe that the future of Tele-ICU is promising, there are multiple issues that must be addressed to increase the benefit of Tele-ICU. Tele-ICU is expensive to deploy and use, it may add burdens to existing intensivists, and it requires organizational and culture changes that can be difficult to accomplish.

Keywords: information technology, leapfrog group, manpower, safety, organization