Adventist Health Portland Launches Virtual ICU
Our critical patients and their care teams have additional support thanks to OHSU and Adventist Health Portland’s virtual intensive care unit (vICU) partnership. Bedside critical care doctors, nurses and other staff are backed up by nonstop visual and data connection to a vICU team at OHSU.
The vICU adds support to the local team by:
- Tracking each patient’s vital signs.
- Viewing ventilator and key laboratory data.
- Engaging in two-way communication to round on patients.
- Assessing patients, tracking progress and changes, and recommending treatments.
“Adding vICU gives our patients constant observation and support by a clinical expert and our frontline staff a trusted partner at the bedside,” says Cindy Nutter, patient care executive. “This resource increases our ability to deliver the right care at the right time for every ICU patient we serve.”
Each room equipped with vICU is connected to a command center at OHSU, where a team monitors all ICU patients across the OHSU Health system using video for visual monitoring and telemetry for data monitoring.
The vICU command center also uses machine learning to analyze individual patients’ information against data from past and present ICU patients. This real-time analysis helps the care team identify problems or risks faster, which can lead to better outcomes.
The collaborative OHSU Health vICU program also provides clinical support for ICU beds at OHSU Hospital and Hillsboro Medical Center.
