Making the coronary care unit cost-effective.

Coronary care units (CCUs) have now been in use for 20 years, and it is generally acknowledged that they have helped to reduce hospital mortality for patients with acute myocardial infarction. In recent years the indications for admission to a CCU have been greatly expanded to include all patients with suspected myocardial infarction and a variety of other manifestations of cardiovascular disease including primary arrhythmias and heart failure. The focus of the CCU has also broadened to include the prevention of major complications and the use of a variety of invasive and noninvasive diagnostic and therapeutic interventions before, as well as in response to, complications. With the changing indications for CCU admissions and the changing use of the CCU, new problems have arisen. The number of patients who might benefit from CCU care is now much larger and may at any given time greatly exceed the number of beds available. Decisions regarding who should be admitted to the CCU, how long a patient should stay in the CCU and which of the large and growing armamentarium of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions should be used are now increasingly important. These decisions have not only medical but also economic implications. Based on a 5-year experience with an intensive care unit computer data bank, strategies for more cost-effective CCU use have been explored. This has involved identification of high- and low-risk subsets of patients and modifications of standard operating procedures. The common clinical problems of chest pain, arrhythmias, syncope, pulmonary edema and myocardial infarction will be used as examples.