How a Not-So-New Concept Buoyed Mayo, Advocate Aurora Amid a Crisis

Virtual care has helped health systems solve a myriad of problems during surges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did digital healthcare help organizations care for patients outside their hospitals, but it also helped enhance critical care within the four walls of their facilities.

About 13 percent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were admitted to an ICU during the Omicron period, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though this percentage was lower than the ICU admission rate in winter 2020–21 (18.2 percent) and the Delta variant (17.5 percent) periods overall, the Omicron wave still strained US health systems. 

Health systems with established electronic intensive care unit programs were able to support severely ill patients despite shrinking resources and financial pressures resulting from the different phases of the pandemic.

eICUs allowed health systems to both provide specialized critical care to patients wherever they were in the facility and support overworked care teams as cases surged.