The purpose of the tele-ICU is not to replace bedside clinicians or bedside care, but to provide improved safety and enhance outcomes through standardization.

Telemedicine, defined as “the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve patients’ health status” is not a novel approach to patient care.1 It has been more than 25 years since Grundy et al2 first described the use of intermittent remote telemedicine consultation to improve the delivery of health services to 395 patients in an intensive care unit (ICU) at a 100-bed hospital. Although the project demonstrated that television consultation had a “greater clinical and educational impact” than telephone consultation, Grundy et al concluded that further research was necessary to optimize use of the technology. Historically, other models of ICU tele-consultation have also demonstrated clinical benefits; a reduction in length of stay for infants of very low...

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