anyone hearing about eICU?

PoetInAHat! · Apr 9, 2013

My hospital has eICU. I don't work in the eICU, but I dowork in one of the ICU's. We are part of a Health System in which there are 6hospitals. All ICU's in the system are linked to the eICU. All ICU rooms have acamera so they can see the patient (and anything in the room) and a videoscreen (so we can see them). Obviously the camera isn't on all the time, justwhen they are looking in

Our eICU is located at our biggest level 1 trauma hospital.Our eICU is always staffed with critical care nurses 24/7. Then we havecritical care MD's who are there for 18hrs out of the day. They break up allthe ICU's in the system and each eICU RN has a couple ICU's they are responsiblefor.

They "camera" in on each patient every so oftendepending on the patient's acuity level or when ever they get an alarm. Or they"camera" in if we push the button. We use our eICU a lot. We call thefor anything and everything. Got a question about some procedure you are not familiarwith... they will help you. Something not right with your pt and you just can'tput your finger on it, push the eICU button. Pt codes... push the eICU button.Need help navigating through the sepsis protocol or any protocol they arethere. Needs orders on a pt when you can't get in contact with on call MD, theyare there. If they are doing their rounds and notice your pt is about to climbout of bed they call and let you know. You get the idea.

The only problem we really have is... balancing the actbetween letting the MD at the hospital handle it or the critical care MD at the eICU handleit. It can be little tricky sometimes with certain MD's. Maybe once I have alot more experience and feeling "too old" for bedside nursing butwanting to stay in critical care will I think about becoming an eICU RN.

Hope that helps.

overtonis · Apr 9, 2013

thanks for input. I can see how valuable that is for staff. I worked at UPENN few years ago and we also had camera in room but it was really only used when we had code in another room we could push button and have remote MD watch our patient. Now that nurses are using eICU to get orders, follow protocol or learn how to do something is amazing. Timing is perfect as alot of experienced RN are retiring or soon will retire and good percentage of RN in ICU will be inexperienced.

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Apr 11, 2013

Although great in theory my fear is the removal of RN's at the bedside to save money....... and all patients will be monitored by remote staff so the only licensed personnel will be remote and unlicensed personnel will be at the bedside....all to save the almighty dollar.

meghan91 · Apr 13, 2013

We have eicu in the icu that I work at. I honestly feel like we don't call to them a lot during the day an evening we have our own critical care doctors in the unit along with nps an pa's. after 7pm we only have np's an pa's in the unit so sometimes they will call eicu for orders or help if they need it. Once in a while eicu will come up on the tv/speaker we have in each room just to check in. I have seen them on during codes or once when a patient was getting out of bed. Overall I think it's a good concept to have people watching over but we should not be getting rid of the bedside nurses an other staff an having these people just telling others what to do over the tv

HDicuRNnicki · Apr 14, 2013

At the hospital I work at we have an AICU, same basic princple. Sometimes the AICU is found to me more intrusive rather than helpful. It can be useful in dire situations but at a large magnet hospital there are plenty of personnel at our disposal... I have seen the "box" as we call it, cause quite a disturbance as they are giving orders during code situations from afar. Life is very different when you're present in the the room.