Utilizing triage rates to improve ICU admission guidelines of elderly rib fracture patients

Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved..

BACKGROUND: Elderly rib fracture patients are generally admitted to an ICU which may result in overutilization of scarce resources. We hypothesized that this practice results in significant overtriage.

METHODS: Retrospective study of patients over age 70 with acute rib fracture(s) as sole indication for ICU admission. Primary outcomes were adverse events (intubation, pneumonia, death), which we classified as meriting ICU admission. We utilized Cribari matrices to calculate triage rates.

RESULTS: 101 patients met study criteria. 12% had adverse events occurring on average at day 5. Our undertriage rate was 6% and overtriage rate 87%. The 72 overtriaged patients utilized 295 total ICU days. Evaluating guideline modification, ≥3 fractures appears optimal. Changing to this would have liberated 50 ICU days with 3% undertriage.

CONCLUSION: Elderly patients with small numbers of rib fractures are overtriaged to ICUs. Modifying guidelines to ≥3 rib fractures will improve resource utilization and save ICU beds.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2022

Erschienen:

2022

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:223

Enthalten in:

American journal of surgery - 223(2022), 1 vom: 15. Jan., Seite 126-130

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Goldstein, Carma [VerfasserIn]
Juthani, Biren [VerfasserIn]
Livingston, David H [VerfasserIn]
Glass, Nina E [VerfasserIn]
Sifri, Ziad [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Elderly
ICU
Journal Article
Rib fractures
Trauma
Triage

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 25.01.2022

Date Revised 25.01.2022

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1016/j.amjsurg.2021.07.034

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM329172034