As ICU beds fill up at several hospitals in California, Sutter Health is using telemedicine to try and manage some of the demand for skilled healthcare workers.
Dr. Vanessa Walker is medical director of the Valley electronic ICU for Sutter Health in Roseville. She has extensive experience working with critically ill patients, but says COVID-19 is unlike anything else.
"It’s the sheer number, the volume of patients, it’s the length of time on the ventilator. It’s the ages, I mean, yes we’re seeing elderly people but I’m also intubating younger people – 30 year olds, 40 year olds - that are not coming off the ventilator, that are having bad outcomes."
Dr. Walker said it has been difficult to manage the patients coming in just from the immediate area, never mind taking in critical patients from rural hospitals.
"The patients are coming into the emergency department in droves. Every day we’re admitting more and more to the hospital and we’re getting less out of the hospital back to their homes because they’re stuck here for quite some time because they’re so sick."
Rural providers are facing the same issues, without the experience of emergency and critical care staff in busier urban areas.
That is where the electronic ICU comes in. It is a form of telemedicine that allows highly experienced staff to provide virtual assistance to their colleagues at smaller facilities.
"We are able to provide high levels of care, intensive care unit physicians and nurses with lots of experience to these small rural hospitals that are really struggling right now, taking care of patients with acuity levels that they never would have had to manage before."
The telehealth monitoring offers 24/7 care and an extra set of eyes to monitor patients’ vitals.
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