Ochsner plans linked ICU across six hospitals

Ochsner Health System is developing an ICU network that will link six south Louisiana hospitals and provide patient care from a central location. The Times-Picayune says work will begin this month to install equipment at Ochsner hospitals in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Kenner. The system will go online in 2012, and a long-term goal is to expand it to small, rural hospitals outside of the Ochsner system. The teleconferencing equipment and software will connect 140 beds with nurses and at least one intensivist, a physician trained in critical care, working out of one location. Dr. David Taylor, who is in charge of implementing the program, told the newspaper the system will allow patients to stay closer to home and will leverage personnel resources to provide better care. “This is a way to optimize resource allocation within the entire system in a way that is better for the patients and for the providers,” Taylor told The Times-Picayune. “We can’t just make more intensivists. The question is how we get specially trained doctors more integrated in patient care.” Read the full story here.