Territorial TeleUCI

The context

The Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital in Lleida manages nearly 28,000 annual discharges and treats more than 1,500 critically ill patients each year in the 30 beds that make up its Intensive Care Unit (ICU). As a reference center for a large and dispersed healthcare region, Arnau coordinates the critical care of several regional hospitals in the Pyrenees: the Santa Maria University Hospital also located in Lleida, the Pallars Regional Hospital in Tremp, the Fundació Sant Hospital in La Seu d'Urgell and the Val d'Aran Hospital in Vielha.

Despite having essential and emergency services, these centers They do not have an ICU, which requires the transfer of any critical or semi-critical patient to the reference hospital, precisely the Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital. In a territory marked by long distances, roads conditioned by orography, weather and variable land and air travel times, this lack of immediate access to specialized knowledge in intensive care can compromise the initial care of these patients.

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The challenge

Ensure that All of them, regardless of where the emergency occurs, they receive the same quality of care and the same access to expert clinical knowledge as if they were in a tertiary hospital. For this purpose, it is necessary to:

• Ensure that intensivists can view in real time the monitored data of each patient in regional hospitals.
• Have a reliable, interoperable and secure system that connects heterogeneous medical devices.
• Avoid unnecessary transfers and improve coordination between local teams and reference center specialists.
• Provide continuous support to professionals in the hospitals of origin, as if they were physically at bedside.

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The Solution

The Arnau Hospital in Vilanova implemented a model of Territorial teleUCI based on Better Care technology to remotely monitor critical and semi-critical patients in regional hospitals.

The key to the project was the implementation of BC Link^®, the Better Care interoperability platform that automatically integrates data from any medical device, regardless of make or model.
Thanks to its technological capabilities, all ventilation monitoring data, hemodynamics, vital records, infusion pumps and alarms, among others, are transferred in real time to clinical displays BC Mview^® and BC Tracker^®.

This allows intensivists in Lleida to:

• Access from your command center to all the clinical information of the monitored patients, as if they were physically on the bedside in regional hospitals.

• Maintain direct communication with local teams and reach consensus on clinical decisions based on structured and reliable data.

• Adjust treatments, prioritize resources and decide more precisely when a transfer is necessary... and when not.

In this way, local professionals feel that they have the immediate support of the team of critics at the reference hospital, while the intensivists at the Lleida hospital expand their care capacity in an area that goes beyond the walls of the hospital's own ICU.

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The clinical value

Since its launch, the territorial TeleUCI model has generated a significant clinical and operational impact:

• 14% decrease in transfers unnecessary to the Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital, avoiding the movement of patients and families over long distances.

• Improving initial care to critically ill patients in regional centers.

• Greater equity in access to advanced critical care throughout the Lleida healthcare region.

• Better clinical coordination between local teams and the intensivists of the reference hospital.

BC Link solutions^®, BC to Mview^® and BC Tracker^® of Better Care have been essential to ensure connectivity, interoperability and remote monitoring in real time, consolidating a pioneering model of extended critical care.

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Impact on clinical research and innovation

The availability of high-resolution data has opened the door to new lines of clinical research, especially in the field of critically ventilated patients.

This has contributed to a paradigm shift in critical patient care, reinforcing The role of data as a central axis of clinical improvement, patient safety and healthcare innovation.

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Results

Since its launch, the territorial TeleUCI model has generated a significant clinical and operational impact:

• 14% decrease in transfers unnecessary to the Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital, avoiding the movement of patients and families over long distances.

• Improving initial care to critically ill patients in regional centers.

• Greater equity in access to advanced critical care throughout the Lleida healthcare region.

• Better clinical coordination between local teams and the intensivists of the reference hospital.

BC Link solutions^®, BC to Mview^® and BC Tracker^® of Better Care have been essential to ensure connectivity, interoperability and remote monitoring in real time, consolidating a pioneering model of extended critical care.

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