IBM and VISICU Wire Pacific Rim With Remote Critical Care Services for Military

IBM BladeCenter Powers eICU(R) “Telemedicine” Network, Connecting Patients to Medical Care Experts.

ARMONK, NY : IBM (NYSE: IBM) and VISICU, Inc. (NASDAQ: EICU) today announced a joint effort to wire a telemedicine network to provide remote critical care support to military hospitals along the Pacific Rim. Tripler Army Medical Center (Honolulu, Hawaii), in conjunction with staff at University of Hawaii, will manage the remote monitoring and support system using VISICU’s eICU® technology on IBM BladeCenter servers. The eICU center, in collaboration with remote military hospitals, will provide an enhanced level of care to active-duty military, their families, and other beneficiaries.

VISICU’s eICU solution enables military hospital personnel throughout the Pacific Rim to “electronically connect” with the remote eICU® center in Hawaii. This allows instantaneous access to critical care specialists who are able to monitor patient status and speak directly with bedside clinicians to guide appropriate intervention. By taking immediate action, patients can be stabilized to prevent further complication subsequently eliminating or delaying the need for air evacuation. Using state-of-the-art network and video technologies, along with device connectivity and Smart Alerts®, the eICU specialists have the potential to provide support for over 300 patients across the Pacific Rim.

Tripler Army Medical Center, part of the Pacific Regional Medical Command (PRMC), is the first military medical center to use the VISICU eICU solution for remote monitoring and care of patients. Tripler has been supporting Joint Medical Operations with the U.S. Naval Hospital in Guam four thousand miles away. In order to extend access to other hospitals along the Pacific Rim, a more flexible server platform was required.

By moving to IBM BladeCenter servers and IBM System Storage, Tripler is now in a position to extend support to additional hospitals throughout the Pacific Rim. This advanced solution has the capacity to support over 300 patient connections on an expanded telemedicine network that can span over 4000 miles.

Dr. Eric A Crawley, Chief of Critical Care Medicine at Tripler Army Medical Center, and Dr. Benjamin W Berg, Clinical Professor at University of Hawaii School of Medicine-Telehealth Research Institute, have lead the program to institute the eICU BladeCenter solution. Dr. Berg says, “Access to the best specialists shouldn’t be restricted by geographical barriers. With this new infrastructure in place, we will be able to leverage our virtual practice to provide high quality critical care services to a greater number of military personnel and their families.”

The Telemedicine and Advanced Technologies Research Center (TATRC), a section of the U.S. Army’s Medical Research and Materiel Command, headquartered at Fort Detrick, will be showcasing this solution May 13-15 at the 2007 American Telemedicine Association (ATA) Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.