Delaying discharge from intensive care saves lives

Mortality after discharge from intensive care may be reduced by 39% if some patients (identified by a triage model) were to stay in intensive care for another 48 hours. This means that 16% more intensive care beds are needed. Daly et al (p 1274) developed a triage model which identified patients at risk from inappropriate discharge by using multivariant analysis of five variables: age, end stage disease, physiology, length of stay, and cardiothoracic surgery. 34% of high risk patients had a mortality of 25% compared with 4% for those not at risk. This model may help doctors in their difficult clinical decisions about which patients to discharge in order to make room for urgent admissions.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Reduction in mortality after inappropriate early discharge from intensive care unit: logistic regression triage model

Kathleen Daly, R Beale, and R W S Chang
BMJ 2001 322: 1274. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]