AIMS: The aim of a critical care outreach team is to facilitate discharges from critical care beds, educate ward staff in the management of deteriorating patients, facilitate transfer to critical care and reduce readmission rates to critical care. Although intuitively a good idea, there are few data to support outreach in terms of reducing the readmission rate to critical care and subsequent patient mortality. This retrospective observational study attempted to determine the change in the critical care readmission rate, an indicator of the quality of critical care, critical care mortality and in-hospital mortality following the introduction of a critical care outreach team in a major teaching hospital. METHODS: A retrospective review of 1380 discharges from critical care was undertaken and the readmissions identified (n = 176). Readmission rate, mortality and other demographic data were compared between the pre and post-outreach periods. RESULTS: Critical care mortality, in-hospital mortality and 30-day mortality were all reduced in the post-outreach period amongst readmissions to critical care. There was also a decease in the overall mortality of all patients admitted to critical care. There were no apparent causative factors for this reduction in mortality before and following outreach. CONCLUSIONS: There are many confounding factors in assessing the impact of outreach teams in hospitals. This study tentatively concludes that outreach teams may have a favourable impact on mortality rate amongst readmissions to critical care, but more data is needed from multicentre trials.
AIMS: The aim of a critical care outreach team is to facilitate discharges from critical care beds, educate ward staff in the management of deteriorating patients, facilitate transfer to critical care and reduce readmission rates to critical care. Although intuitively a good idea, there are few data to support outreach in terms of reducing the readmission rate to critical care and subsequent patient mortality. This retrospective observational study attempted to determine the change in the critical care readmission rate, an indicator of the quality of critical care, critical care mortality and in-hospital mortality following the introduction of a critical care outreach team in a major teaching hospital. METHODS: A retrospective review of 1380 discharges from critical care was undertaken and the readmissions identified (n = 176). Readmission rate, mortality and other demographic data were compared between the pre and post-outreach periods. RESULTS: Critical care mortality, in-hospital mortality and 30-day mortality were all reduced in the post-outreach period amongst readmissions to critical care. There was also a decease in the overall mortality of all patients admitted to critical care. There were no apparent causative factors for this reduction in mortality before and following outreach. CONCLUSIONS: There are many confounding factors in assessing the impact of outreach teams in hospitals. This study tentatively concludes that outreach teams may have a favourable impact on mortality rate amongst readmissions to critical care, but more data is needed from multicentre trials.
Authors: Lisa Esmonde; Ann McDonnell; Carol Ball; Catherine Waskett; Richard Morgan; Arash Rashidian; Kate Bray; Sheila Adam; Sheila Harvey Journal: Intensive Care Med Date: 2006-09-22 Impact factor: 17.440
Authors: Laura Evans; Andrew Rhodes; Waleed Alhazzani; Massimo Antonelli; Craig M Coopersmith; Craig French; Flávia R Machado; Lauralyn Mcintyre; Marlies Ostermann; Hallie C Prescott; Christa Schorr; Steven Simpson; W Joost Wiersinga; Fayez Alshamsi; Derek C Angus; Yaseen Arabi; Luciano Azevedo; Richard Beale; Gregory Beilman; Emilie Belley-Cote; Lisa Burry; Maurizio Cecconi; John Centofanti; Angel Coz Yataco; Jan De Waele; R Phillip Dellinger; Kent Doi; Bin Du; Elisa Estenssoro; Ricard Ferrer; Charles Gomersall; Carol Hodgson; Morten Hylander Møller; Theodore Iwashyna; Shevin Jacob; Ruth Kleinpell; Michael Klompas; Younsuck Koh; Anand Kumar; Arthur Kwizera; Suzana Lobo; Henry Masur; Steven McGloughlin; Sangeeta Mehta; Yatin Mehta; Mervyn Mer; Mark Nunnally; Simon Oczkowski; Tiffany Osborn; Elizabeth Papathanassoglou; Anders Perner; Michael Puskarich; Jason Roberts; William Schweickert; Maureen Seckel; Jonathan Sevransky; Charles L Sprung; Tobias Welte; Janice Zimmerman; Mitchell Levy Journal: Intensive Care Med Date: 2021-10-02 Impact factor: 17.440
Authors: Nelleke van Sluisveld; Gijs Hesselink; Johannes Gerardus van der Hoeven; Gert Westert; Hub Wollersheim; Marieke Zegers Journal: Intensive Care Med Date: 2015-02-12 Impact factor: 17.440