When Sutter Health launched its advanced eICU® patient-safety system in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2005, it became the first health network in the Western United States to bring online two eICU® centers for constant monitoring of critically ill patients. Expansion of its eICU® program followed success in the greater Sacramento area, where Sutter's first eICU® center has supported patients and caregivers since January 2003.

In Sutter’s eICU® system, intensivists and specially trained nurses use early warning software and advanced video and remote monitoring to keep an even closer eye on critical-care patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

At Sutter General Hospital in Sacramento, where Sutter’s sophisticated technology and team have been in place the longest, physicians have recognized improvements in care since adopting the system. In one example, hospital ICU mortality is down 17.3 percent from 2002, before the technology was implemented, to 2004.

On the West Coast, Sutter was the first to connect a rural hospital to an eICU system. Sutter’s eICU® hub is now monitoring patients at Sutter Coast Hospital -- more than 425 miles away.

Across the nation, eICU® technology from Baltimore, Md.-based VISICU, Inc. is installed or is being installed at only 34 health systems. Sutter Health is the only hospital system in California with eICU technology.