Frontiers of Web Work: the eICU

An article in the Boston Globe tipped me off to the existence of Visicu, a Baltimore-based company that makes what they call the  “eICU® Solution” – a mix of hardware and software designed to address a shortage of intensive-care physicians in the U.S. health care system. Their solution is fairly straightforward and definitely high-tech: by using telemedicine and computer-based support tools, they centralize monitoring for multiple intensive care units into one office where a single highly-trained physician can keep an eye on many patients and supervise staff who are actually physically present.

The eICU system combines a variety of technologies together to maximize the ability of a single physician to apply their skills to many patients. There are scanners and monitors to transmit static images, remote-control cameras for live patient images, and of course the usual array of monitors for vital signs. There’s also an automated support system that looks for readings out of nominal range (reminding me of the sort of server health monitors one sees in IT, actually), as well as a proprietary hyperlinked web database of intensive care information and dedicated phone lines for quick communication with other caregivers who can actually start IVs and perform hands-on procedures.

Is this web work? It’s certainly not the typical “design and develop web sites” or “use the internet to communicate with team members and clients” work practiced by most WWD readers.  But we’ve argued before that there are many kinds of web workers, from digital bedouin to web-enabled cubicle dweller.  To me, the eICU physician looks like a glimpse of a future web worker: one where web technologies have receded into the background, becoming just the enablers of a challenging, exciting job that couldn’t be done any other way.

loading

Comments have been disabled for this post