After Dean Murphy's heart started beating erratically. He wound up in the hospital.
"Bingo, all of a sudden you go from good to very bad," he said.
Nurse Mary Ann Marshall knows she can't be with patient every minute.
"As much as you want to be by the bedside constantly, you cannot. It's impossible," she said.
Now, she has help.
An intensive care specialist is monitoring Dean from a remote ICU center, which tracks dozens of ICU patients in nine different hospitals.
In-room cameras let them do virtual rounds, even zoom in if something doesn't look right.
There's also an extra set of eyes at the hospital pharmacy. The camera is a back up for pharmacists, taking photos of the amount and type of medicine being given. Each drug is bar-coded and scanned.
If something doesn't match up, a pharmacist is warned immediately.
"We take pictures of everything that the technician has used, so now, we have a second set of eyes with some pictures that we can see on the back end when the pharmacist checks," said Troy Shirley, Pharm.D, Director of Pharmacy, Dublin Methodist & Grady Memorial Hospitals.
And even new "smart" beds are making it safer for patients. Not only are nurses able to check in. The bed also automatically weighs the patient while lying down.
How much difference can a trained pair of eyes make? In national studies, specialized intensive care staffing is associated with a 40 percent reduction in ICU mortality.
Overall, about 200,000 patients die in ICU's each year in the united States.
