Treatment in an ICU staffed by trained intensivist clinicians improves survival in critically ill patients. However, many patients lack access to this level of critical care particularly in small hospitals and in rural geographic areas. To address this problem, many hospitals have adopted ICU telemedicine but need to know if ICU telemedicine has great potential to improve survival in critical illness.
The University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine (UPMC) in the Department of Critical Care Medicine www.ccm.pitt.edu with NIH funding, is studying the effectiveness of ICU telemedicine and how and where this technology can best be applied. In critical settings, studies of telemedicine demonstrate mixed results and decision-makers have little guidance regarding how and where to use this potentially transformative technology.
Researchers at UPMC have designed the study “Contributors to Effective Critical Care Telemedicine” (ConnECCT) to identify the key clinical and organizational factors associated with ICU telemedicine effectiveness.
ConnECCT is the first rigorous examination of the factors that define successful ICU telemedicine implementation and will provide clinicians and hospital administrators with immediate actionable data on how to use ICU telemedicine more effectively and efficiently and should lead to improved access and survival for critically ill patients.
Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, ConnECCT will identify a core set of telemedicine best practices that will ultimately lead to a toolkit that can be used to optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of ICU telemedicine in the U.S.
Go to www.ccm.pitt.edu/research/projects/connecct-contributors-effective-critical-care-telemedicine for more information. The Principal Investigator is Jeremy Kahn at kahnjm@upmc.edu or phone 412-647-3136.