LAKEPORT, Calif. – Sutter Lakeside Hospital has improved its ability to provide non-stop, around-the-clock intensive care unit (ICU) patient coverage in recent years by utilizing an electronic telemedicine network called eICU.

“Large city hospitals, and major university medical centers with 20-30 intensive care beds have physicians and specialists on-site to staff ICU shifts 24/7,” said Dr. Bunchong Kosolcharoen, known as Dr. Tony, the director of Sutter Lakeside Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, states.

“At rural hospitals like Sutter Lakeside, our resources are limited,” he added. “In order to provide the highest level of care, equivalent to university-level hospitals, we have instituted electronic remote monitoring at night. This ensures that quality patient care can be provided continuously by a whole team of doctors.”

From 4 p.m. to 7 a.m., doctors from around the North Bay area, including Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Marin General Hospital and Sutter affiliate California Pacific Medical Center, provide acute care of Lakeside ICU patients by observing them electronically.

These doctors can view patients at Sutter Lakeside visually, see patient charts, and look at electronic records, x-rays and test results remotely; physicians can even track Sutter Lakeside’s patients’ vital signs through an electronic stethoscope.  

Kosolcharoen added, “The eICU is comprised of a big group of physicians from a variety of hospitals, including those outside the Sutter system, so we have the advantage of being able to draw from a very deep pool of knowledge and experience.”  

Using high resolution cameras and telemedicine links, the eICU enables up-to-the-minute monitoring so that doctors miles away can write orders and ensure that patient care occurs in real time.

For example, should a patient’s heart stop at night, an alarm is triggered and the telemedicine team alerts nurses on duty at Sutter Lakeside to take immediate action.

“The eICU is a collaborative process where primary and staff physicians at Lakeside confer closely with CPMC doctors and ensure that established care plans are carried over before signing out. I like to think of this as a second-eyes process where the San Francisco staff serves as a backup for those of us at Lakeside every night,” explained Dr. James Pretorius, a hospitalist at Sutter Lakeside who works in the eICU.

“Another new feature allows doctors to have a two-way visual discussion with patients using a TV monitor rolled into the patient’s room on a robotic cart,” Pretorius said. “The Lakeside Emergency Room staff and the stroke team at CPMC are using this device today for personal, one-on-one visits with patients to observe their status. These and other high-tech systems enable us to provide an extremely high level of care.”

The Sutter eICU network monitoring system has become a model for the North Bay region. At Sutter Lakeside Hospital, it is one more way that the hospital can provide excellent care for patients and keep them close-to-home.

“We want to provide the best care possible for the whole patient. I ask myself if I would I want to be admitted to Lakeside’s eICU and my answer is definitely ‘yes.’ While technology alone cannot replace doctors, it does make information flow quickly so physicians at both locations can make timely, accurate decisions faster and more efficiently,” said Kosolcharoen.

To learn more about Sutter Lakeside, visit www.sutterlakeside.org/ .