Long-stay pediatric intensive care unit patients: outcome and resource utilization.
Outcome, resource utilization, and health care characteristics of patients staying in a multidisciplinary pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) for more than 13 days (long-stay patients) were analyzed. Of 647 children admitted consecutively, 46 were long-stay patients. Compared with short-stay patients, long-stay patients were significantly younger and sicker and had a higher incidence of chronic disease. Most important, long-stay patients had significantly higher PICU mortality rates (17.4% v 7.3%, P less than .05) and hospital mortality rates (23.9% v 8.7%, P less than .01) than short-stay PICU patients. Although only 7.1% of the patient sample, long-stay patients consumed approximately 50% of all PICU resources. One-year follow-up on those long-stay patients surviving their hospitalization revealed that 58% had died or were severely disabled. Long-stay patients had relatively poor prognoses and consumed health care resources in excess of their numeric proportions.
Department of Anesthesiology (Division of Critical Care), Children's Hospital National Medical Center, Washington, DC 20010.
M M
MM
Pollack
J D
JD
Wilkinson
N L
NL
Glass
D000367:Age Factors; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002908:Chronic Disease; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010372:Pediatrics; D011379:Prognosis; D013997:Time Factors