Tele-ICU

The MUSC Health Tele-ICU Operations Center delivers 24/7, continuous patient monitoring of partner hospital ICU patients by MUSC Health and Hicuity Health intensivists, advanced practice providers, and critical care nurses.

The tele-ICU is a transformational program that uses proactive technologies and two-way audiovisual communication to enable intensivists, critical care nurses, and other critical care team specialists to collaborate in order to provide remote ICU care. Some hospitals use tele-ICU to gain access to intensivists, and others use the service for an additional layer of critical care support. System alerts produced by sophisticated algorithm software that inform remote tele-ICU physicians and nurses of important trends in patient condition, enabling proactive clinical decision making and early identification of potential problems.

The Tele-ICU and ICU Innovations Program was the proud recipient of the SC Telehealth Program of Excellence, which was awarded by the Governor in 2020.

Partner hospitals have demonstrable improvement in clinical and financial outcomes

• Volume Growth
• Decline in ICU Mortality Rate
• Decline in ICU ALOS
• Increased ICU Patient Acuity
• Decline in Average Number of Vent Days/ICU Patient
• Decline in Hospital ALOS
• Decline in Hospital Morality Rate

Impact on Leapfrog ICU physician staffing score

Hospitals are scored for the ICU Physician Staffing section of the Leapfrog survey based on their answers to a set of 13 questions related to the structures they have in place to care for ICU patients. Hospitals can improve Leapfrog scores by integrating 24/7 tele-ICU coverage. Current SC tele-ICU partners reporting to the Leapfrog hospital survey have earned ‘substantial progress’ (3) or ‘fully meets standard’ (4) Leapfrog scores.

Our Team

Dee W. Ford, M.D, MSCR

Professor of Medicine
Medical Director

Dee W. Ford, MD, MSCR, is a Professor of Medicine and Division Director for MUSC’s Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy, and Sleep Medicine.  She established, and serves as the Medical Director of, the Tele-ICU and ICU Innovations Critical Care Outreach programs. She has over 15 years of experience leading multi-disciplinary ICU quality improvement and program implementation projects, including serving as the Medical Director for MUSC’s Medical Intensive Care Unit. She is widely recognized for her collaborative and multi-disciplinary approach to provider and patient engagement.

Dr. Ford became active in telehealth in 2009. By 2013, she was tapped by MUSC leadership to develop a strategic plan for accelerating MUSC’s telehealth programs. In 2017, she became the Program Director for MUSC’s federally designated Telehealth Center of Excellence.

Dr. Ford is from Anderson, South Carolina, and received her bachelor's degree in biology from the University of South Carolina where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She received her M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society. Dr. Ford completed her internal medicine residency training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and attended the Medical University of South Carolina for her pulmonary/critical care fellowship training.

Shay McLeod, MSN, RN, CCRN
Nurse Manager for Acute Services

 

 

 

Shay McLeod, MSN, RN, CCRN is the Nurse Manager for Acute Services for the Center of Telehealth. Shay started her career at MUSC in 2007. First as a patient care technician, then onto bedside nursing in critical care. Most recently, she served as a Clinical Practice Nurse Expert in the Medical-ICU working on quality measures and supporting bedside staff in training and practice.

Shay earned her Bachelor of Health Science, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and a Master of Science of Nursing with a concentration in Administration. She is heartened by the direction of MUSC Telehealth Acute Services to prioritize patient care and committed to collaborating with partners both within the Center for Telehealth and across the state.