ANCHORAGE, AK – In a state where healthcare has sometimes been delivered by telephone, snowmobile or even dogsled, a couple of recent IT implementations aim to make life a little bit easier.

Early in March, Philips VISICU, the Baltimore-based telehealth unit of Dutch healthcare IT giant Royal Philips Electronics, announced the installation of its eICU Program at Providence Alaska Medical Center’s Health Park in Anchorage. The new eICU center, staffed around the clock, combines early warning alerts and remote monitoring technology to connect off-site critical care specialists to ICU patients and their care teams in the medial center.
Providence is part of Providence Health & Services, a not-for-profit network of hospitals, care centers, health plans, physicians, clinics, home health services and educational facilities.

Shortly afterwards, REACH Call, an Augusta, Ga.-based provider of Web services for remote treatment of medical conditions such as stroke, announced that Providence Health & Services will use the company’s telestroke service in five facilities in the state – Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna, Providence Kodiak Medical Center in Kodiak, Providence Seward Medical and Care Center in Seward, Providence Valdez Medical Center in Valdez and Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau.

“It removes the geographic penalty associated with stroke care,” said Sandeep Agate, CEO and president of Augusta, Ga.-based REACH Call.

REACH Call’s telestroke service offers Alaskans real-time access to neurologists through a secure Web connection. A quick evaluation of a stroke victim can allow on-site medical personnel to administer tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), which can dissolve clots and reverse the symptoms of a stroke if given within three hours of the time symptoms are evident.

Agata said REACH Call was developed in 2003 to connect stroke patients to needed medical care not only in remote places like Alaska and Montana, but in rural and city environments as well, to help everyone from home-bound seniors to doctors stuck in city traffic. Just last month, the company launched REACH 3.0, which enables specialists to remotely evaluate and diagnose a wide range of acute medical conditions.

“REACH 3.0 is based on a more flexible architecture, which reduces our overall development time so that we can quickly and easily implement and customize new applications for both hub and spoke hospitals,” said Agate. “With REACH 3.0, our customers now can employ a single, Web-based platform to launch their comprehensive telemedicine initiatives.”

Providence plans to expand VISICU’s eICU program to surrounding hospitals and as a supplement to local care – an important goal for the nation’s largest and most rugged state. In 2007, Alaska became the last state to adopt e-prescribing. And this April, the state Senate unanimously approved Senate Bill 133, which establishes a health information exchange system in the state to allow Alaskans to create their own personal health records.

“Use of this technology will reduce drug interactions and missed diagnoses and will reduce the need for duplicate testing and administrative overhead,” said Sen. Joe Paskvan, the bill’s sponsor. “We estimate that healthcare expenditures can be reduced by 5 percent a year – that’s $250 million annually in Alaska.”

According to the American Medical Association, Alaska has 2.06 physicians for every 1,000 patients, below the national average of 2.38. And there’s more ground to cover: Alaska has one person per square mile, compared to the national average of 80.

“Here in Alaska, community and rural hospitals do not have the staffing capabilities to deliver advanced medical care,” said Providence CEO Al Parrish in announcing the eICU project. “With the implementation of the eICU Program at Providence Alaska Medical Center, this enhanced medical service can now be provided locally to the sickest of patients. We will save additional lives with the eICU.”

 “Implementation of the eICU Program is one more example of our continuous pursuit of clinical excellence,” added Roy Davis, chief medical officer for Providence. “Justice is a core value – equal access for all patients. Getting the right patient the right treatment at the right time’ is the mantra for critical care. This program allows us to deliver that level of care right where they are – a significant benefit to the communities in Alaska.”