OSF Healthcare has introduced a new virtual technology program that will allow critical care physicians and experienced ICU nurses to remotely monitor patients at five system hospitals. The ConstantCare program is online at Saint Francis Medical Center and will be launched at other OSF sites within the next two-and-a-half weeks. Everything from vital signs, medications, blood test results and x-rays can be monitored at the control center at Saint Francis.

Dr. William Tillis is the OSF eICU Medical Director. He says the eICU is expected to improve mortality rates by 20-percent throughout the healthcare system based on historical data of hospitals already using the technology.

"More importantly, we will have (a) decrease in complications and those are the things we struggle with at times, and those are the things that we'll be able to measure along the way. The other thing that we hope to do by some of these activities, it will decrease the amount of time that's spent in the ICU. Anytime you are in the hospital, if you can get it done as rapidly as possible, that's a better outcome for people. So, that's something we'll be measuring as well," says Tillis.

Tillis says the technology program is expected to save more than 100 lives in the OSF system in its first year. The technology is currently located at an administrative building on the Saint Francis campus. It will eventually be moved to the new Jump Trading Simulation and Education Center once it's constructed