How Your Hospital Can Benefit from Virtual Intensive Care

Virtual services help address the shortage of critical care resources while significantly improving patient outcomes.

Hospital management and administration is a uniquely stressful, high-pressure environment. Providing quality care is job number one, but the resources at your disposal are always in flux. Cost control is crucial. The ongoing shortage of nurses, intensivists and other health professionals makes workflow a daily challenge. Staying on top of new technologies, public policy and legislation is a continuous effort. It requires persistent vigilance. It’s imperative that you manage your resources effectively.

When change is the only constant, novel strategies are needed to maintain your edge. You need a new kind of innovative partner. OSF OnCall offers cutting-edge digital health solutions to help you thrive as you ride the wave of change — and meet the demands of today’s marketplace.

Introducing virtual intensive care
Virtual Intensive Care by OSF OnCall offers a new and modern approach to providing critical care. Our platform combines an expert medical staff, digital technology, predictive analytics and compassionate care to support your team in real time, 24/7/365. We monitor vital signs, test results, medications, imaging and more, looking for abnormal laboratory values and physiological trends to identify critical issues proactively. Remote rounds help your team respond more quickly to deteriorating conditions, preventing emergencies before they happen.

When emergencies do occur, virtual intensive care enables timely interventions so evaluation and treatment can happen more quickly. When seconds matter, that can make all the difference.

Addressing business challenges
One of the most urgent challenges in critical care is the widespread shortage of local intensivists. It’s a complex problem with no easy solution, but we can help by supporting your team virtually. With Virtual Intensive Care by OSF OnCall, an intensivist can be contacted with the click of a button. Faster response times mean fewer complications — and that means lower costs.

Virtual intensive care can also help address the scarcity of critical care beds. Whether your hospital has a dedicated ICU, you’ll be able to care for rapidly deteriorating patients where they are. Patients can receive care from any unit in the hospital, including a step-down unit, post-anesthesia care unit or the emergency department. That allows you to scale your services without adding costly infrastructure.

A collaborative partnership
By partnering with OSF OnCall, you’ll gain the immediate benefits of improved workflow. We’ll work hand in hand with the bedside care team to determine the ongoing plan of care for each patient. But that’s not the end of the ways we can collaborate.

Our team can handle routine tasks like patient admission, communication orders and medication verification. We’ll make shift change a seamless experience. We can work with residents and assist with troubleshooting when problems arise. Radiology, poison control, organ donation, cardiac arrest… the opportunities for teamwork go on and on. When you partner with OSF OnCall, we’re all on the same team.

Improved patient outcomes
Quality metrics related to virtual intensive care illustrate the dramatic improvements in patient outcomes that are possible. Virtual Intensive Care by OSF OnCall is associated with a 27% decrease in the average ICU length of stay, a 20% decrease in average ICU mortality and 1.4 fewer days on a ventilator. Simply put, patients live longer, experience greater comfort and get back to their lives more quickly. That frees up beds and critical care resources — so others can get the care they need more quickly. It’s a productive cycle that pays its value forward.

Care close to home
The benefits of virtual intensive care go above and beyond the numbers. You’ll improve your capability to care for patients closer to home, so they won’t have to travel far to get the services they need. By reducing unnecessary transfers, we’ll minimize disruption in their daily lives, which helps relieve the burden of family members as well. When patients can focus on rest and recovery, their health outcomes improve — and you’ll see an increase in patient satisfaction.

Best practice initiatives
When you partner with OSF OnCall, you can rest assured knowing your patients will receive evidence-based care. We integrate best practice initiatives in all our services, from glycemic control to ventilator management to early sepsis detection and more. This helps prevent costly complications and improves patient safety, while ensuring the highest level of quality care.

Data and quality improvement
Virtual intensive care provides real-time data collection and remote monitoring to support your care team, so they can focus on the patient. Advanced analytics help identify trends and patterns to support early diagnosis and treatment decisions. This data also can be used to develop quality improvement projects and integrate best practices and procedures into your workflow.

Enhancing services and revenue
Intensive Care by OSF OnCall can open new opportunities to expand services and revenue streams. With added cost savings per patient, you can extend your capacity for critical care without adding dedicated labor or costly infrastructure. You may even be able to provide intensive care services to other facilities, increasing access in previously inaccessible markets.

Preparing for the future
Finally, your connection with OSF OnCall is a step toward preparing for the future. As the population continues to age, demand for critical care services will only increase. We’ll be your partner as you navigate these broad demographic shifts — and help you leverage your resources more effectively.

From addressing the shortage of critical care resources to significantly improving patient outcomes, digital health can be an essential part of the solution. Give us a call or contact us online to speak with a representative who can answer your questions and help you realize the many benefits of virtual intensive care.