Territorial TeleICU

The context

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The Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital in Lleida manages nearly 28,000 annual discharges and treats more than 1,500 critical patients each year in the 30 beds that make up its Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

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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.

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Despite having essential and emergency services, these centers do not have an own ICU, which requires the transfer of any critical or semi-critical patient to the reference hospital, precisely the Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital.

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The challenge

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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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For this reason, it is necessary to ensure that any patient, regardless of where the emergency occurs, receives the same quality of care and access to expert clinical knowledge as if they were in a tertiary hospital. In other words, it is necessary to:

• Ensure that intensive care specialists can remotely monitor each patient's data in real time in regional hospitals.
• Provide a reliable, interoperable, and secure system that connects heterogeneous medical devices and computer systems.
• Avoid unnecessary transfers and improve coordination between local teams and specialists at the referral centre.
• Provide ongoing support to professionals at the hospitals of origin.

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The Solution

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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.

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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.
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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^®.

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This allows intensivist phisicians 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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Results

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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^®, BC Mview^® and BC Tracker^® solutions 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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Conclusion

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The TeleUCI model implemented in the Lleida health region demonstrates that, with the right integration of data and technology, it is possible to bring the intensive care specialist's knowledge to wherever the patient is, regardless of distance.

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This model not only improves the quality of care and reduces unnecessary transfers, but also strengthens the region's healthcare network and sets a new standard of equity and efficiency in terms of critical care.