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- Title
Inpatient transfers to the intensive care unit: delays are associated with increased mortality and morbidity.
- Authors
Young, Michael P; Gooder, Valerie J; McBride, Karen; James, Brent; Fisher, Elliott S
- Abstract
<bold>Objective: </bold>To examine if delayed transfer to the intensive care unit (ICU) after physiologic deterioration is associated with increased morbidity and mortality.<bold>Design: </bold>Inception cohort.<bold>Setting: </bold>Community hospital in Ogden, Utah.<bold>Patients: </bold>Ninety-one consecutive inpatients with noncardiac diagnoses at the time of emergent transfer to the ICU. We determined the time when each patient first met any of 11 pre-specified physiologic criteria. We classified patients as "slow transfer" when patients met a physiologic criterion 4 or more hours before transfer to the ICU. Patients were followed until discharge.<bold>Interventions: </bold>None.<bold>Measurements: </bold>In-hospital mortality, functional status at hospital discharge, hospital resources.<bold>Main Results: </bold>At the time when the first physiologic criterion was met on the ward, slow- and rapid-transfer patients were similar in terms of age, gender, diagnosis, number of days in hospital prior to ICU transfer, prehospital functional status, and APACHE II scores. By the time slow-transfer patients were admitted to the ICU, they had significantly higher APACHE II scores (21.7 vs 16.2; P =.002) and were more likely to die in-hospital (41% vs 11%; relative risk [RR], 3.5; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.4 to 9.5). Slow-transfer patients were less likely to have had their physician notified of deterioration within 2 hours of meeting physiologic criteria (59% vs 31%; P =.001) and less likely to have had a bedside physician evaluation within the first 3 hours after meeting criteria (23% vs 83%; P =.001).<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Slow transfer to the ICU of physiologically defined high-risk hospitalized patients was associated with increased risk of death. Slow response to physiologic deterioration may explain these findings.
- Publication
JGIM: Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2003, Vol 18, Issue 2, p77
- ISSN
0884-8734
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1046/j.1525-1497.2003.20441.x