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BACKGROUND: The rapid response team (RRT) concept was developed to improve care for decompensating patients outside of the intensive care unit (ICU) setting. The tele-ICU service (eICU (®) ) at Health First Hospitals (Brevard County, FL) has provided tele-critical care support for patients outside the ICU using a mobile platform (the eMobile platform) since 2012. In this study we sought to evaluate the ability of eMobile to support care administered by RRTs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective review evaluating mobile cart activations for RRT calls was performed. Data on mobile cart deployments were recorded over a 33-month period from January 2012 through September 2014. RESULTS: Five hundred eighty mobile cart activations for critical care support were initiated by RRTs, and 577 were completed (>99%). For recorded gender, 223 patients (47%) were male, and 248 (53%) patients were female. Mean recorded age was 70 ± 16 years (median, 72 years). The most common patient conditions were respiratory distress (n = 190, 33%), altered mental status (n = 137, 24%) and hypotension (n = 59, 10%). The most common interventions were medication orders (n = 231, 40%) and laboratory studies (n = 92, 29%). For 566 eMobile calls with documented dispositions, 189 patients (33%) were managed without ICU upgrade. No adverse patient outcomes were recorded involving eMobile. Compared with the RRT program in 2009, the last year before testing of eMobile began (2010-2011), addition of tele-critical care support for calendar years 2012 and 2013 increased projected cost avoidance from unnecessary ICU transfers by a mean of 66% above the 2009 baseline. For Fiscal Year 2014, a projected cost avoidance analysis for unnecessary ICU transfers including costs of information technology (IT) support demonstrated a return on investment up to 1. 66 for every 1 invested in IT support. CONCLUSIONS: Mobile critical care coupled with RRT is clinically effective and can generate meaningful cost avoidance.
Pappas et al. (Thu,) studied this question.