BAY PINES, Fla. — For many people, telehealth has become the norm — from doctors prescribing medicine after a virtual visit with a patient to pediatricians diagnosing ear infections via wireless otoscope.
Now, Bay Pines VA in Pinellas County is using the telehealth model in the ICU.
The hospital this week launched TeleCritical Care, a new system that allows doctors and nurses in the ICU at Bay Pines VA to connect with other medical experts across the country 24/7.
"Allows you to better manage patients moment to moment. The best example is a critically ill patient is brought in, I can be in the room resuscitating that patient, being the critical care doctor, my time and my resources are locked up in that room, I can now ask and transfer over the management of the patient to the critical care doctor remotely," said Dr. Stephen Clum, the chief of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine at Bay Pines VA.
The goal is to provide even better care to critically ill veterans and their family members by expanding their medical team and offering additional perspectives on the most complicated of cases.
Bay Pines VA is the first hospital within the VA Sunshine Healthcare Network to launch the system, which is accessed with a simple push of a button.
The session begins with a nurse appearing on the screen and virtually entering the ICU room who can then interact with the doctor and patient.
TeleCritical Care also allows remote physicians and nurses to have access to patients' vitals that are constantly running.
"If any of those alerts go off as part of the tracking system, because they run all the time, the first thing, the nurses remotely would pan in and discuss with nurses here," Clum said.
Patients can opt out of the virtual care if they want and the cameras are turned off once the virtual session is through.
The system has already been used a few times since it launched.