There's no place like home: boarding surgical ICU patients in other ICUs and the effect of distances from the home unit.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Intensive care units (ICUs) function frequently at capacity, requiring incoming critically ill patients to be placed in alternate geographically distinct ICUs. In some medical ICU populations, "boarding" in an overflow ICU has been associated with increased mortality. We hypothesized that surgical ICU patients experience more complications when boarding in an overflow ICU and that the frequency of these complications are greatest in boarders farthest from the home unit (HU).

Methods

A 5-year (June 2005 to June 2010) retrospective review of a prospectively maintained ICU database was performed, and demographics, severity of illness, length of stay, and incidence of ICU complications were extracted. Distances between boarding patients' rooms and the HU were measured

SUBMITTER: Pascual JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4156017 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature