The Association of ICU Acuity With Outcomes of Patients at Low Risk of Dying.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVE:Many ICU patients do not require critical care interventions. Whether aggressive care environments increase risks to low-acuity patients is unknown. We evaluated whether ICU acuity was associated with outcomes of low mortality-risk patients. We hypothesized that admission to high-acuity ICUs would be associated with worse outcomes. This hypothesis was based on two possibilities: 1) high-acuity ICUs may have a culture of aggressive therapy that could lead to potentially avoidable complications and 2) high-acuity ICUs may focus attention toward the many sicker patients and away from the fewer low-risk patients. DESIGN:Retrospective cohort study. SETTING:Three hundred twenty-two ICUs in 199 hospitals in the Philips eICU database between 2010 and 2015. PATIENTS:Adult ICU patients at

SUBMITTER: Vranas KC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5828025 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature