Association of an Emergency Department-Based Intensive Care Unit With Survival and Inpatient Intensive Care Unit Admissions

Increased patient acuity, decreased intensive care unit (ICU) bed availability, and a shortage of intensivist physicians have led to strained ICU capacity. The resulting increase in emergency department (ED) boarding time for patients requiring ICU-level care has been associated with worse outcomes....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	JAMA network open Vol. 2; no. 7; p. e197584
Main Authors:	Gunnerson, Kyle J, Bassin, Benjamin S, Havey, Renee A, Haas, Nathan L, Sozener, Cemal B, Medlin, Jr, Richard P, Gegenheimer-Holmes, Jennifer A, Laurinec, Stephanie L, Boyd, Caryn, Cranford, James A, Whitmore, Sage P, Hsu, Cindy H, Khan, Reham, Vazirani, Neha N, Maxwell, Stephen G, Neumar, Robert W
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States American Medical Association 03-07-2019
Subjects:	Emergency Medicine Intensive care Mortality Online Only Original Investigation Patients
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Summary:	Increased patient acuity, decreased intensive care unit (ICU) bed availability, and a shortage of intensivist physicians have led to strained ICU capacity. The resulting increase in emergency department (ED) boarding time for patients requiring ICU-level care has been associated with worse outcomes. To determine the association of a novel ED-based ICU, the Emergency Critical Care Center (EC3), with 30-day mortality and inpatient ICU admission. This retrospective cohort study used electronic health records of all ED visits between September 1, 2012, and July 31, 2017, with a documented clinician encounter at a large academic medical center in the United States with approximately 75 000 adult ED visits per year. The pre-EC3 cohort included ED patients from September 2, 2012, to February 15, 2015, when the EC3 opened, and the post-EC3 cohort included ED patients from February 16, 2015, to July 31, 2017. Data analyses were conducted from March 2, 2018, to May 28, 2019. Implementation of EC3, an ED-based ICU designed to provide rapid initiation of ICU-level care in the ED setting and seamless transition to inpatient ICUs. The main outcomes were 30-day mortality among ED patients and rate of ED to ICU admission. A total of 349 310 visits from a consecutive sample of ED patients (mean [SD] age, 48.5 [19.7] years; 189 709 [54.3%] women) were examined; the pre-EC3 cohort included 168 877 visits and the post-EC3 cohort included 180 433 visits. Implementation of EC3 was associated with a statistically significant reduction in risk-adjusted 30-day mortality among all ED patients (pre-EC3, 2.13%; post-EC3, 1.83%; adjusted odds ratio, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.80-0.90; number needed to treat, 333 patient encounters; 95% CI, 256-476). The risk-adjusted rate of ED admission to ICU decreased with implementation of EC3 (pre-EC3, 3.2%; post-EC3, 2.7%; adjusted odds ratio, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.76-0.83; number needed to treat, 179 patient encounters; 95% CI, 149-217). Implementation of a novel ED-based ICU was associated with improved 30-day survival and reduced inpatient ICU admission. Additional research is warranted to further explore the value of this novel care delivery model in various health care systems.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Undefined-1 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23
ISSN:	2574-3805 2574-3805
DOI:	10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.7584