Approximately 200,000 adults and children are admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) in the United Kingdom annually. This figure continues to grow even after hospitals face staff and beds shortage in the ICUs. 

With the healthcare industry embracing ongoing technological advancements in medicine, many healthcare facilities are searching for ways to strengthen their critical care facility and overcome related challenges. It's when the electronic intensive care unit (eICU) comes into the picture.

The emergence of EICU, a telehealth model, has revolutionized patient critical care by facilitating real-time communication with remote central monitoring support facilities staffed with ICU medical care specialists. 

In this article, you can learn more about eICU and how it has proven beneficial for the healthcare industry and caregivers. 

What is eICU?

An electronic intensive care unit (eICU) is a form or subset of telemedicine that leverages state-of-the-art technology to provide 24/7 critical care services to patients with highly complex, severe health conditions without an on-site intensivist. 

Now, patients need not wait to be admitted in the critical care unit; instead, healthcare staff can diagnose and treat patients in critical conditions via remote intensivists. With eICU, physicians can monitor the patient's condition and vital signs using visual equipment like video conferencing, high-definition audio, and software tools.

In addition, critical care specialists can access the patient's data, clinical profiles, and treatment-related information remotely. With this information, ICU specialists can further provide patients with real-time support and manage them even without being at the same healthcare facility.

How Does eICU Function? 

The primary difference between a typical icu care unit and an eICU workflow is that the critical care physician for the latter is available remotely. 

So, how does an eICU function? 

The functioning protocol of an electronic ICU involves using sensing devices like a camera, pulse oximeter, body weight, blood pressure, defibrillator, ventilator, etc., and necessary telemedicine devices. Every patient is tagged with an identification code, which networking clients use to identify them. 

The patient's information is then routed using a router facility or internet to the server devices like monitors, mobile phones, etc. The team of critical care unit specialists can access these server devices 24/7 at any place.

Hence, using this eICU functioning protocol, an ICU specialist or physician can directly interact with the designated patient/healthcare worker via monitors or mobile devices as an interface, carry out necessary consultations, and diagnose or treat the patient. 

For the eICU model to be successful, it's essential for dedicated caregivers to be beside the patient round the clock to access patient data, clinical information, and doctor's treatment advice and reports remotely. 

How Does eICU Specialists Work?

Just like ICU physicians, eICU specialists begin each shift by collaborating with the patient care team and discussing each patient, classifying them into:

• Patients with acute needs who have potential medical issues and challenges.
• Patients who can be downgraded or transferred from the ICU.
• Patients in the 'grey area' where their illness's trajectory is unclear.

When an emergency occurs, the patient care team requests a consultation with the remote icu specialists. These physicians use monitors or mobile devices to talk to the care team through procedures and speak directly to the patients or their families to discuss the treatment.

What are the Benefits of eICU?

The following points outline the benefits of electronic intensive care units (eICU):

• Remote Care: The electronic ICU care unit allows treating physicians to manage the patients from a distance, using a monitor or mobile device to interact with patients directly via telemedicine. 
• Requires minimal staff: With eICU setup, a dedicated team of professionals can manage more than one ICU patient with the help of minimal staff. It eliminates the critical problem, i.e., shortages of medical staff to treat ICU patients.
• Prevents clinical burnout: Critical care staff and physicians trained for eICU can offload a significant proportion of their work and avoid burnout, the most common problem with ICU personnel. This advanced telemedicine technology allows ICU physicians and nurses to manage and monitor a large number of patients from their respective healthcare facilities. It enables the swift and intellectual functioning of ICU staff without any stress factor.
• Prevents ICU from overcrowding: Electronic intensive care units allow trained physicians to deliver remote care to critical patients, reducing the ICU admission rate. In addition, physicians can supervise these patients with minimal staff. Hence, this helps healthcare facilities reduce the overcrowding with the electronic ICU and minimize the risk of transmission of viral infections. 
• Multidisciplinary management approach: Another perk of deploying the eICU model into the healthcare unit is it enables a multidisciplinary management approach. ICU specialists and teams can frequently interact with the other medical teams at different hospitals to make the best decisions for managing the patients in question. It will aid in removing human errors and lowering the mortality rates.
• Cost-effective critical care: Deploying the eICU model would lead to upfront costs during installation. The initial charges might be associated with installing the biosensors, remote sensors, monitors, and telemedicine devices. However, once the entire eICU setup is connected with a large number of related ICUs, the setup can be managed using a few competent and technologically advanced professionals. It will help save the overall finances in the long term.

Final Words

Although eICU, the subset of telemedicine, is a debatable concept, it appears to be the optimal choice in the current scenario of increasing ICU admissions. This technologically advanced tool will enhance the moral delivery of healthcare. Now, patients can access critical care in the comfort of their homes without incurring extensive charges related to ICU admissions. This becomes very much relevant in India with non-existent trained ICU doctors in the peripheral hospitals /nursing homes.

Is your loved one critically ill and, thus, needs ICU care? If so, Medanta eICU is at your service with its super-specialized critical care team. Medanta eICU represents the pinnacle of critical care, providing unparalleled treatment to patients nationwide.