The platform, which is called the TeleICU, is designed for physicians in rural hospitals to connect with anesthesiologists at Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. The video call consultations occur at patients’ bedsides, where the physicians strategize how to best provide care until the patient can be transferred to a larger hospital.
The consultations typically revolve around subjects such as pain management, blood transfusions, acute respiratory distress, organ dysfunction and ventilator management.
“Anesthesiology has long been a specialty of innovation,” Stephen Surgenor, MD, president of the New Hampshire Society of Anesthesiologists, said in a news release. “During this healthcare emergency, telemedicine has been a helpful way for critical care anesthesiologists to care for COVID-19 patients who wouldn’t otherwise have the ability to be seen by these specialists.”
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