The most visible and utilized telemedicine tools available today are mainly geared toward primary care, but there is a growing emergence of specialty and high-touch medicine delivered through telemedicine technology. Case in point, Royal Philips debuted its enterprise-level telemedicine software designed for use in intensive care units at the American Telemedicine Conference in Orlando.
Philips’ eCareManager, the company’s new FDA-cleared teleICU software, works to alleviate critical care team shortages by offering a platform connecting regular hospital staff with intensivists – physicians trained specifically for work in the ICU – and offering actionable insights to improve outcomes for patients with the most complex cases.
“Now more than ever health systems need to seamlessly integrate and utilize tools that will help their organization optimize resources and take care of as much of the patient population as possible,” Manu Varma, who leads Philips Wellcentive and Hospital to Home, said in a statement. “As we continue to face physician shortages, allowing health systems to scale their services while providing quality outcomes is critical in the shift to value-based care. This technology eases the burden on physicians by allowing them to see more patients and making the critical care delivery process more efficient, opening up more beds and improving readmission rates.”
The software is also source-agnostic, which allows hospitals to easily integrate the platform into their workflows and foster coordination between bedside care teams and virtual physicians, and, in turn, enabling intensivists to monitor more patients. Altogether, the eCareManager aims to help care teams intervene more quickly with the most high-risk patients.
The launch of eCareManager comes just a few weeks after a CMS-commissioned report showed how Philips’ eICU technology saved Emory Healthcare $4.6 million and also improved outcomes across the hospital system.
Similarly, hospital systems who have tested Philips’ eCareManager have also seen improvements in their care quality and efficiency to high-risk patients.
“TeleICU technology is a powerful asset in providing proactive care by making quick catches around subtle changes in patient care and showing which patients need immediate attention,” Dana Gilbert, Presence Health’s chief strategy and population said in a statement. “Since implementing Philips’ eCareManager 4.1 as part of the beta testing process under IRB governance, we have been able to improve workflow efficiency for our clinicians and increase the number of patients that our team can oversee at a time while maintaining improved patient outcomes and thereby giving Presence Health one more way to provide quality, compassionate care.”
