Surgery patients placed in alternate ICUs due to crowding get less attention from doctors
Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - 09:02
in Health & Medicine
Overcrowding of intensive care units (ICUs) is a growing problem in American hospitals, often resulting in the need to place patients in alternate intensive care units within a hospital. Research has indicated that these “ICU boarder” patients — for example, a brain surgery patient staying in a cardiac ICU — have worse outcomes as a result of this alternate placement, and now, a new study suggests one reason for these worse outcomes is that ICU boarders, compared to non-boarders, appear to get markedly less attention from doctors and other caregivers.