Delay in Patient Transfer from the Intensive Care Unit to a Stepdown Unit at a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital: A Prospective Study

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Transfer delays from the ICU can cause a shortage of critical care beds, jeopardize patient treatment, and lead to decreased quality of therapy.4 The barriers to ideal ICU transfers are poor teamwork, unclear expectations, and confusion about the informational needs of the receiving clinicians.[5][6][7][8] ICU clinicians can often overestimate the readiness of general ward clinicians to receive their patients.9 Transfers to stepdown units or general wards that are not adequately ready to receive patients and transfers taking place IntroductIonThe intensive care unit (ICU) in the hospital is the most critical area and provides life support to critically ill and injured patients.ICU services are expensive, and appropriate utilization is imperative.When a patient recovers or stabilizes after a critical illness, the patient is transferred to another department of the hospital, that is, the stepdown unit or ward.Optimal utilization of resources in the ICU is an important goal for hospitals and is an essential prerequisite to controlling healthcare expenditures.ICU charges are much more than regular ward charges; hence, delays in the shift-out process increase the cost of patient care.High hospital occupancy can cause a bottleneck effect in which fully occupied floor beds impede transfers out from the ICU, which in turn, prohibits new admission of critically ill patients into the ICU. 1 With the change in clinical status of the patient, intrahospital patient transfers also involve shifting the responsibility of care between the hospital units. 2 Transferring patients from ICUs to general wards or stepdown units is a complex process.Patients are transferred from an environment of highly specialized care to a facility with fewer resources.3 Lack of proper transfer protocols puts the patients at risk of suboptimal continuity of care during the transfer process.