Ogallala Community Hosptial offers iCare for critically ill patients
OGALLALA, Neb. (May 11, 2011) – An advanced, additional layer of care for hospitalized patients in need of Intensive Care now is available at Ogallala Community Hospital. The hospital joins 15 other Banner Health facilities in providing eICU® technology, but is the only rural facility in western Nebraska with this innovative technology.
Utilized by Banner Health’s iCare Intensive Care departments, eICU® technology is also referred to as the Tele-ICU. iCare consists of a team of offsite critical care nurses and physicians (intensivists) who remotely monitor ICU patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As backup to existing bedside caregivers, these specially trained staff members work from a Clinical Operations Room (COR) located on the Banner Desert Medical Center campus in Mesa, Ariz..
“We’re integrating this technology into two of our Emergency department beds and one of our inpatient rooms as part of Banner Health’s iCARE intensive care program,” explains interim Chief Nursing Officer, Daphne Wyatt. “The iCare specialists closely collaborate with onsite professionals in providing immediate supervision and care management. It’s a highly coordinated level of support that doesn’t replace care but rather enhances it by adding practitioners who have immediate access to the patient’s vital signs, medical records, test results, X-rays and other information.”
Each intensive care unit is equipped with a high resolution, full-motion, two-way video camera with audio hookup in each ICU patient room. From the COR, specialists can assist the bedside caregivers to pick up even the smallest changes in a patient’s condition. Because intensive care patients are so medically fragile, this early warning system can help divert life-threatening complications. When the iCare specialists detect a problem or concern, they can talk live to the caregivers at the bedside and assess the patient via voice and video. This timely response has been shown to result in fewer patient complications, shorter hospital stays and has saved more than 1,853 lives within the Banner Health network since its first implementation in 2007.
About Ogallala Community Hospital
Ogallala Community Hospital is an 18-bed, critical access hospital located in Ogallala, Nebraska. Founded in 1952, Ogallala Community Hospital provides excellent clinical quality, the latest in technological advances in a rural setting, and caring attention to patient needs. Ogallala Community Hospital is part of nonprofit Banner Health, named a Top Ten Hospital System in the U.S. by Thomson Reuters, with 23 hospitals throughout the West. For more information about Ogallala Community Hospital, visit www.BannerHealth.com/Ogallala.
