Hospitals to Get e-Help on Overnight Shift

Technology, Physician Shortages Lead to Innovative Linkup for Intensive Care

Southern Maryland's three hospitals are among the first participants in an ambitious effort to address physician shortages in rural areas by using advanced technology.

Officials from Civista Medical Center, Calvert Memorial Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital participated in an event Monday in Washington to announce the launch of Maryland eCare, which will use doctors and nurses in Delaware to monitor patient health in Maryland.

The program is designed to supplement the care provided by on-site nurses during overnight shifts in intensive care units by equipping them with instant links to critical care physicians -- specialists known as intensivists -- based at a command center at a Wilmington, Del., hospital.

"Many hospitals, especially in rural areas of the state, did not have an intensivist covering the ICU during nighttime hours," said James Xinis, Calvert Memorial's president, who announced the project at Monday's kickoff event. "This raises the level of care available locally."

Xinis said that intensivists are generally on the job between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the hospital in Prince Frederick, but that overnight nurses must rely on a single on-call physician. The eCare program, he said, will dramatically cut down on the response time if a patient's health deteriorates overnight.

"It helps preserve the intensivists that we do have by making sure they can go home and get some stress-free sleep," said Christine M. Stefanides, president of Civista Medical Center in La Plata. "And it makes patient care safer and reduces the risk of errors."

As part of the program, a video camera and computer terminal positioned in each intensive care patient's room will be equipped to send data and high-resolution photos to the command center in Delaware. A physician hoping to confirm the amount of medicine being administered through an intravenous pump could zoom in on the IV bag, then compare the information with what the patient's doctor ordered. A nurse who had a question could press a button on the wall to be connected almost instantly with the doctor in Wilmington.

The other Maryland hospitals participating are Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin, Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury and Washington County Health System in Hagerstown.

Hospital officials emphasized that patients will incur no additional costs to be covered by Maryland eCare, thanks in part to a $3 million start-up grant from Maryland CareFirst, an insurance company that is part of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield network. After the program's first three years, the hospitals will be responsible for paying $37,700 per year for each bed in the intensive care unit.

Calvert Memorial will be the first of the Southern Maryland hospitals to implement Maryland eCare when it goes live early next year. St. Mary's Hospital will join the network during the fall of 2009, and Civista will follow the next summer.

"It's just very exciting for us to be included," said Christine R. Wray, president of St. Mary's Hospital. "This is a big step forward for patient safety."