Through a partnership between Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Woman’s Hospital, seriously ill patients across greater Baton Rouge are benefiting from increased access to critical care specialists.
As Business Report details in a feature from the current issue, this fall, intensivists—highly trained physicians who specialize in the care of critically ill patients, typically in an intensive care unit—and critical care nurses at OLOL began remotely monitoring patients in the adult intensive care unit of Woman’s around the clock.
Combining state-of-the-art virtual and wireless technology and special two-way videoconferencing equipment placed in ICU rooms at Woman’s, specialists at a command center—referred to as “the bunker”—at Our Lady of the Lake constantly monitor in real time the vital signs of critically ill patients. They also have access to each patient’s health care information, such as lab work and physician orders.
The result is better patient care, says Patricia Johnson, senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Woman’s.
“In the past several years, there’s been an increase in the use of intensivists,” she says. “We see better outcomes for ICU patients when care is provided by a physician specially trained in intensive care.”
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