Dive Brief:
- A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that the adoption of telehealth monitoring programs in ICUs wasn't associated with a meaningful decrease in mortality or length of stay, FierceHealthIT reports.
- To examine the issue, researchers compared patients pre-and-post-telehealth implementation at eight ICUs, along with control ICUs that didn't implement a telehealth program.
- The study found no statistical difference in 30 day mortality rates or length of stay, according to FierceHealthIT. For example, the study found that unadjusted 30-day mortality rates at intervention ICUs rose from 7.7% pre-implementation to 7.8% post-implementation.
Dive Insight:
While this study suggested that eICUs aren't effective, other studies have given reason to believe that they do offer some benefits. There is enough evidence that they could be helpful that researchers continue to call for more investigation of their efficacy. It could be that eICUs will prove useful in some settings and not in others — it remains to be seen.