TeleICU Management

The TeleICU feature is built on top of the critical care module, to enable doctor-doctor advisory, whereby a specialist physically in an urban center (or the TeleICU Hub) can virtually monitor the clinical condition of a patient admitted in an ICU (eg: in an ICU in a remote location) and get in touch with the treating physician present by the patient's bedside to give specialist advice.

The feature allows for the specialists to be in any geography and still monitor the assigned patient and communicate with the local doctor.

The feature is rolled out in the field as part of the 10BedICU project where designated TeleICU Hubs are set up in the Tertiary Govt. Hospitals. The TeleICU Hubs are linked to designated Spokes which are District or Taluk level hospitals in the more remote parts of the state. The current value addition through such a system happens as follows:

• The ICUs set up in rural and remote locations (TeleICU Spokes) can provide better care with the remote availability of specialists. This makes critical care accessible to the rural population.

• The critical patients in such remote locations are not forced to risk spending hours in an ambulance in transfers to the tertiary care facility in urban centers. Such patients can first be stabilized in the local ICU (TeleICU Spokes), with remote supervision from TeleICU Hub and then transferred to better hospitals when the risk is lesser.This reduces no. of deaths in hospital transfers.

• The staff at the TeleICU Spokes get trained at the TeleICU Hub. This is followed by constant monitoring and supervision from the hub. This provides an opportunity for the staff at the TeleICU Spokes to upskill.

• The TeleICU Spoke hospitals will be equipped to take in more severe cases due to the confidence the staff gets with the support of the TeleICU Hub. This will have a positive impact on not just the treatment in the ICU in the spoke hospitals but also all the lower level HDUs and wards.