Posted on: Thursday, June 20, 2002

Tripler extending tele-care

Associated Press

BALTIMORE — Visicu, a Baltimore startup firm, has landed an important customer for its telemedicine technology that enables patients to be monitored remotely by intensive care units — Hawai'i's Tripler Army Medical Center.

The U.S. military is set to install Visicu's so-called "eICU" at Tripler Army Medical Center, as part of a strategy to extend care for critically ill patients throughout the Pacific.

Tripler will monitor six patients at the Guam Naval Hospital, 4,000 miles away.

The Pentagon will study the new system and is considering installing it at military medical centers throughout the Pacific region.

Visicu, which started in 1997 by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital, has been involved in a similar trial at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., since 2000.