Tele-Health Monitoring system with camera.Getting treatment at Rockford Memorial Hospital's intensive care unit now looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. That's because of a new system called tele-health monitoring which helps more patients recover in the ICU. The system basically lets doctors and nurses at an off-site location watch over and tele-conference with patients in RMH's ICU when their regular doctor is away in something like surgery.
The Tele-Health Monitoring program run by Advanced ICU Care at Rockford Memorial Hospital. This system includes a ceiling-mounted camera pointed at the patient's bed. The video seen on the other end is so clear the doctor could see the pupils of patient lying on the bed. Plus, the doctors or nurses on the other side are there to monitor vitals 24 hours a day.
"What it does is provide an extra team member, if you will, for a doctor," says Dr. Kevin Ruggles, RMH Vice President of Medical & Clinical Affairs.
Rockford Memorial Hospital sees almost 18-hundred intensive care patients each year. Studies find the best way for people to survive in the ICU is to have 24-7 monitoring from a doctor who specializes in caring for critically ill patients. But there is a growing national shortage of those physicians. RMH says to combat that and improve the quality of their treatment they turned to tele-health monitoring.
"The other thing this system does is provide a computer driven decision making which takes a variety of perimeters that are monitored, blood pressure, pulse, heart rate and by putting them together with programs that have been developed over the years and can detect patients that are about to deteriorate and need intervention," says Dr. Ruggles.
That's when the Tele-Health System doctors would call either a nurse or doctor at RMH. If it is a minor problem, it keeps doctors who are doing procedures from being disturbed.
"They are not going to be replacing a live physician. If a procedure is going to be needed to be done, we are there. If a patient needs to be examined, I am there," says Dr. Bharati Roy, RMH Respiratory Care Medical Director.
Right now RMH is the only hospital that does Tele-Health Monitoring in its ICU in Rockford.
