Giving Compass' Take:

• CEO of Lou Silverman of Advanced ICU Care describes the benefits to patient care with tele-ICU and other telehealth services.

• How can donors support more telehealth initiatives in hospitals in order to address issues of access to healthcare?

• Read about how telehealth is helping student populations have access to healthcare.

St. Louis-based telehealth company Advanced ICU Care was born of simple necessity: Two intensivists were asked to care for patients in two different intensive care units (ICUs) simultaneously—but those ICUs were on opposite sides of the city.

Thirteen years later, those two St. Louis hospitals remain clients of that company, which has been working to spread the concept of the tele-ICU. And even just five years ago, CEO Lou Silverman said he was still starting prospective client meetings with, “What (the heck) is tele-ICU?”

In 2019, telehealth is playing an increasingly vital role in healthcare, and Silverman said the delineation between in-person and virtual healthcare—even in the most critical of care settings—is disappearing.

Silverman recently sat down with FierceHealthcare to talk about the breakdown of the wall between virtual and in-person care.

FierceHealthcare: Why is tele-ICU so important to the future of healthcare?

Lou Silverman: People are getting older, older people understandably use more ICU resources, and the supply of intensivists is and will remain flat. Therefore, the demand for critical care expertise far outstrips the supply.

FH: How is tele-ICU impacting costs for providers and payers?

LS: Historically, our clients recognize between a two-to-one and a six-to-one return on investment (ROI) from our tele-ICU partnerships. While there are many factors that go into a sophisticated ROI calculation, some of the primary benefits include shorter ICU stays, improved utilization of ICU beds, fewer patient transfers, lower infection rates, fewer ventilator days and decreased incidence of sepsis. There are also additional clinical impact areas, such as reduced ICU mortality and adherence to well-established clinical best practices, which are material benefits of the program. These benefits arise in areas in which patients, providers and payers have alignment of interests.

Read the full article about telehealth and patient care by Jacqueline Renfrow at Healthcare News.