Professional accountability in the tele-ICU: the CCRN-E.

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) is the world's largest specialty nursing organization. The AACN Certification Corporation provides credentialing to validate nursing practice in acute and critical care. The advent of tele-ICU nursing added a challenge to the application of certification in a new specialty area.

Prognostic outcomes after the initiation of an electronic telemedicine intensive care unit (eICU) in a rural health system.

APACHE (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation) mortality predictions and other outcomes are reported after the initiation of a telemedicine intensivist staffing program to monitor the intensive care unit patients of a rural health system. Mortality, length of ICU stay, and length of hospital stay were significantly less than predicted. Length of stay was identical to one year previously in the largest hospital reported, but the case mix index of severity had increased.