Phoebe Sumter campus launches new tele-ICU system
AMERICUS, Ga. – In Sumter county, the Phoebe Health System is implementing a new telehealth system. One that will benefit ICU patients and put them in contact with a doctor at a moment’s notice.
Phoebe Sumter’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Chris Taranto says that the new tele-ICU system went online earlier this week, as they find themselves without all the proper specialties.
“The tele-ICU system is a system that allows us to immediately get an intensivist to the bedside of any patient who needs it. We are a smaller hospital, and like a lot of hospitals our size, we don’t have many critical care specialists,” said Dr. Chris Taranto, Chief Medical Officer, Phoebe Sumter.
The tele-ICU system is actually a nationwide call center that as Dr. Taranto tells us is able to monitor and chat with inpatients.
This includes monitoring things such as heart rate, as well as keeping an eye on IVs.
Not to mention that it can help nurses provide proper care in a matter of seconds.
“Within about 60 seconds, at most, there is an intensivist, a critical care trained doctor that can come on, and help with stabilizing a patient, until that patient’s primary care doctor is able to come in and take over,” said Dr. Taranto.
But, Dr. Taranto tells us as well that this provides a major convenience to patients in the Sumter county ICU…
As it prevents having to wait on a possible transfer that could take a minimum of over a half an hour just to get to Albany…
Let alone a larger city.
“At times, we just don’t have other facilities to transfer the patients to. And, this gives us an extra layer of safety and an extra layer of capability to keep those patients here locally,” said Dr. Taranto.
As the system is now online, it serves to help people in Sumter county’s ICU get quicker access to care from a doctor without a need to be transferred dozens of miles away.
In a release from the Phoebe Health System, Phoebe Sumter campus CEO Carlyle Walton says the new tele-ICU system can monitor patients 24/7.
Brian Roche reporting.
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