Quality and efficiency of care in rural communities serviced by Avera Health has experienced a rise thanks to a partnership with Royal Philips.

The South Dakota-based health system has saved more than $60 million and experienced reductions in ICU stays and mortalities through the ICU division of its telemedicine program, Avera eCare, over the past 12 months, with the Philips eICU program, carried out through its IntelliSpace eCare Manager software solution.

“Philips IntelliSpace eCareManager is designed not to replace an EHR, but to serve as a purpose-built population health layer that can aggregate patient data from EHR’s and other source systems using standardized bi-directional HL7 interoperability,” Christine Storm, business leader, eICU, Philips, told HCB News. “This enables Avera eCare clinicians to have a single census-level view of all patients that are uniformly presented even if the data coming in is from different systems. This approach allows for comparative benchmarking and supports clinician productivity in caring for patients.”

Avera eCare monitors patients in more than 36 hospitals across nine states and serves 13 percent of critical access hospitals throughout the nation. As of this year, Avera has used Philips' eICU program for 15 years.

By continuously monitoring critical patients and alerting providers to changes in conditions, Philips eICU program has enabled faster responses to complications, reducing lengths of ICU stay by nearly 11,000 bed days in Avera eCare facilities. Such a decline has enabled the health system to save $62 million in health care costs.

It also has seen declines in mortality, with 260 more lives saved, as well as in clinician burnout.

Remote monitoring is carried out with Philips IntelliSpace eCareManager, which provides clinicians with a single integrated view of patient data, enabling care teams to manage large populations of patients.

Care providers can collaborate with one another on patient management using the graphical user interface, CensusMosaic, to ensure patients receive the right care when needed.

"The software synthesizes data from the numerous data sources used to monitor ICU patients (cardiac monitoring, laboratory, medication, and radiology systems) to make it more meaningful and actionable for the clinicians. Information overload can be a significant problem when caring for acutely ill patients as an individual ICU patient can generate approximately 2000 data points in a 24 hour period," Deanna Larson, chief executive officer of Avera eCARE, told HCB News. "The software allows physicians and nurses to analyze the data efficiently to improve care for critically ill patients. The eICU serves as a second layer of care for ICU patients and this tool helps us add support and safety to the patient, and also provide important support to the bedside care team."

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