For Release: October 27, 1997
Contact:
Jim Augustine (703) 644-6824
Mike White (703) 739-1363
Press Room (as of 10-26-97) (504) 670-6615
REDUCED STAY IN HOSPITAL AND ICU SAVES $20,000 PER PATIENT
New Orleans-Following recommendations of a multi-disciplinary team,
physicians were able to cut back on days their patients spent in the
intensive care unit (ICU) and the hospital in general and saved an averate
of $20,000 per patient, according to a study reported today at the annual
meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.
The study, conducted by Dr. Dennis Nicholson and colleagues at California's
Pomona Vallen Hospital Medical Center, assessed 306 patients admitted with
acute respiratory failure to the hospital's critical care unit. All
patients studied survived to at least the point of discharge and received
mechanical ventilation during the course of their care.
A multi-disciplinary team was comprised of a critical care physician, an
infectious disease physician, a critical care nurse, a pharmacist, a social
worker, a respiratory therapist, and a dietitian. They made daily rounds
assessing patients needs and made treatment recommendations to the
attending physician who was free to accept or reject these recommendations.
Length of stay in the ICU for patients whose physicians followed all of the
recommendations of the multi-disciplinary team were compared with patients
whose physicians decided not to follow one or more recommendations. Ninety
patients were in the "recommendations followed" group and 216 were in the
"recommendations not followed" group. The average stay for the 90 patients
in the ICU was 3 days compared to 8 days for those in the group of 216.
overall hospital stay for patients whose physicians followed the
recommendations was 9 days compared with 18 days for those in the
"recommendations not followed" group. The total cost per patient decreased
by an estimated $20,000 when the recommendations were followed.
Investigators concluded that multi0-disciplinary healthcare team rounds,
setting daily recommendations for care, is effective in reducing length of
stay in critically ill patients with adult respiratory failure. Such an
approach, they said, can improve health care delivery to these patients in
a cost-effective manner.
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