Kyan Safavi

Date of Award

January 2013

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Medical Doctor (MD)

Department

Medicine

First Advisor

Harlan M. Krumholz

Subject Area(s)

Medicine

Abstract

Background. Despite increasing attention on reducing relatively costly hospital practices while maintaining the quality of care, few studies have examined how hospitals use the intensive care unit (ICU), a high-cost setting, for patients admitted with heart failure (HF). We characterized hospital patterns of ICU admission for patients with HF and determined their association with the use of ICU-level therapies and patient outcomes.

Methods and Results. We identified 166,224 HF discharges from 341 hospitals in the 2009-10 Premier Perspective® database. We excluded hospitals with <25 HF admissions, patients <18 years old, and transfers. We defined ICU as including medical ICU, coronary ICU, and surgical ICU. We calculated the percent of patients admitted directly to an ICU. We compared hospitals in the top-quartile (high ICU admission) with the remaining quartiles. The median percentage of ICU admission was 10% (Interquartile Range 6% to 16%; range 0% to 88%). In top-quartile hospitals, treatments requiring an ICU were used less often: percentage of ICU days receiving mechanical ventilation (6% top quartile versus 15% others), non-invasive positive pressure ventilation (8% versus 19%), vasopressors and/or inotropes (9% versus 16%), vasodilators (6% versus 12%), and any of these interventions (26% versus 51%). Overall HF in-hospital risk standardized mortality was similar (3.4% versus 3.5%; P = 0.2).

Conclusion. ICU admission rates for HF varied markedly across hospitals and lacked association with in-hospital risk-standardized mortality. Greater ICU use correlated with fewer patients receiving ICU interventions. Judicious ICU use could reduce resource consumption without diminishing patient outcomes.

Comments

This is an Open Access Thesis.

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