The Experience and the Characteristics of Patients With Tele-ICU Implementation in a Rural Community Hospital

Background Tele-ICUs are increasingly being used in the US. In Japan, young physicians mainly operate rural community hospitals to manage severely ill patients. However, the introduction of the tele-ICU system in Japan is still uncommon. We introduced a tele-ICU system to a community hospital. The objective of this study is to determine if the newly introduced tele-ICU system is being effectively utilized. Methods This is a single-center, retrospective observational study. We introduced the tele-ICU system to the NachiKatsuura Town Onsen Hospital, Japan, in 2019. Thereafter, we retrospectively explored the characteristics of the consulted cases, the time of consultation, the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, and the number of consultations by month from 1st July 2019 to 31st March 2020. The main outcome was the monthly number of consultations, and other measures included the clinical characteristics of the consulted cases. Results A total of 81 cases were referred to the tele-ICU system within nine months. Sixty-two cases, excluding those with missing data, were included in the analysis. The number of consultations was almost constant during the study period and was most frequent during the day. The recommendations from tele-ICU physicians were mostly "advice on the treatment plan." The mean SOFA score was 2.56. Conclusions We introduced a Japanese-type tele-ICU system for Japanese rural community hospitals. Many cases from rural community hospitals that were referred to the tele-ICU systems were moderately severe and did not require urgent transportation. These cases are not indicated for emergency transportation and should be treated in rural community hospitals.