Delayed ICU Transfer of Critically Ill Patients: Data Support Common Sense

Boarding of critically ill patients in the ED for 6 hours or more was associated with increased mortality.

The number one reason for emergency department overcrowding is intensive care unit (ICU) overcrowding, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. ED boarding of critically ill patients is becoming a common and especially challenging phenomenon, but few studies have addressed the effects of delayed ICU transfer on outcomes in such patients.

Researchers retrospectively evaluated prospectively collected data (Project IMPACT database) for more than 50,000 ED patients at 90 hospitals who were admitted directly to an ICU. Patients were divided into two groups based on time to ICU admission: delayed (ED boarding ≥6 hours; 2.1% of patients) and non-delayed (ED boarding <6 hours; 97.9%).

In univariate analysis, the delayed group had a sig…

Reviewing Author

Tiffany M. Osborn, MD