ICU Patient Care in an Isolation Room

Participating Organizations: Ascom, Draeger, Epic, OR.NET

Severely infectious patients, such as those with COVID-19, put healthcare workers (HCWs) at greater risk of infection due to their frequency and time in contact with infected patients. The HCWs commonly enter the patient room to administer care to the patient and manage the therapeutic equipment. This management of the patient’s therapy often requires monitoring with physiologic patient monitors and therapeutic support with ventilators and infusion pumps which may be delayed due to the need for HCWs to protect themselves by donning personal protective equipment (PPE) to enter the patient room and doffing the PPE upon leaving. This process can exceed 15 minutes depending on the PPEs used. Infectious diseases confer a synergistic burden on and risk to the patient due to the requirements for isolating the patient including subpar and impaired coordination of care and family visits, increased rate of adverse events, and increased depression. Remote control and monitoring can be used to improve patient care by eliminating some treatment delays, reduce the infection risk to the HCW and help preserve the limited supplies of PPE. Medical devices that support open interoperability technology can provide remote access to view parameters and adjust settings thereby increasing efficiency, saving the costs of the PPE and most importantly increasing the safety of the HCW.