Does Continuous EEG Monitoring Affect Outcomes in Critically Ill Patients?

In the U.S., the use of continuous electroencephalography (cEEG) in critically ill patients has increased dramatically over the past 10 to 15 years — so much so that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was provoked to review the billing codes for video and EEG monitoring. This study used the largest inpatient healthcare database in the U.S. (sampling nearly 20% of hospital discharges between 2004 and 2013) to examine outcomes associated with cEEG. From a sample of 7.1 million adult patients, 22,728 patients receiving cEEG specifically to guide management comprised the case cohort; the remaining patients served as a control cohort. Analyses were adjusted for patient characteristics (including surrogate measures for severity of ill…