Using a consensus-based definition, the prevalence, hospital mortality, and costs of chronic critical illness are substantial. Chronic critical illness is particularly common in the elderly although in very old patients the prevalence declines, in part because of an increase in early mortality among potentially eligible patients.
Background
Intensive care unit (ICU) telemedicine is an increasingly common strategy for improving the outcome of critical care, but its overall impact is uncertain.
Objectives
To determine the effectiveness of ICU telemedicine in a national sample of hospitals and quantify variation in effectiveness across hospitals.
Research design
We performed a multi-center retrospective case-control study using 2001–2010 Medicare claims data linked to a national survey identifying United States hospitals adopting ICU telemedicine. We matched each adopting hospital (cases) to up to 3 non-adopting hospitals (controls) based on size, case-mix and geographic proximity during the year of adoption. Using ICU admissions from 2 years before and after the adoption date, we compared outcomes between case and control hospitals using a difference-in-differences approach.
Results
132 adopting case hospitals were matched to 389 similar non-adopting control hospitals. The pre- and post-adoption unadjusted 90-day mortality was similar in both case hospitals (24.0% vs. 24.3%, p=0.07) and control hospitals (23.5% vs. 23.7%, p<0.01). In the difference-in-differences analysis, ICU telemedicine adoption was associated with a small relative reduction in 90-day mortality (ratio of odds ratios: 0.96, 95% CI = 0.95–0.98, p<0.001). However, there was wide variation in the ICU telemedicine effect across individual hospitals (median ratio of odds ratios: 1.01; interquartile range 0.85–1.12; range 0.45–2.54). Only 16 case hospitals (12.2%) experienced statistically significant mortality reductions post-adoption. Hospitals with a significant mortality reduction were more likely to have large annual admission volumes (p<0.001) and be located in urban areas (p=0.04) compared to other hospitals.
Conclusions
Although ICU telemedicine adoption resulted in a small relative overall mortality reduction, there was heterogeneity in effect across adopting hospitals, with large-volume urban hospitals experiencing the greatest mortality reductions.
Discharge practices bias in-hospital ICU mortality measures in a way that disadvantages large hospitals. Accounting for discharge bias will prevent these hospitals from being unfairly disadvantaged in public reporting and pay-for-performance.
LTACHs vary widely in mortality rates, underscoring the need to better understand the sources of this variation and improve the quality of care for patients requiring long-term ventilator weaning.
BackgroundLong-term acute care hospitals (LTACs) provide specialized treatment for patients with chronic critical illness. Increasingly LTACs are co-located within traditional short-stay hospitals rather than operated as free-standing facilities, which may affect LTAC utilization patterns and outcomes.MethodsWe compared free-standing and co-located LTACs using 2005 data from the United States Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. We used bivariate analyses to examine patient characteristics and timing of LTAC transfer, and used propensity matching and multivariable regression to examine mortality, readmissions, and costs after transfer.ResultsOf 379 LTACs in our sample, 192 (50.7%) were free-standing and 187 (49.3%) were co-located in a short-stay hospital. Co-located LTACs were smaller (median bed size: 34 vs. 66, p <0.001) and more likely to be for-profit (72.2% v. 68.8%, p = 0.001) than freestanding LTACs. Co-located LTACs admitted patients later in their hospital course (average time prior to transfer: 15.5 days vs. 14.0 days) and were more likely to admit patients for ventilator weaning (15.9% vs. 12.4%). In the multivariate propensity-matched analysis, patients in co-located LTACs experienced higher 180-day mortality (adjusted relative risk: 1.05, 95% CI: 1.00–1.11, p = 0.04) but lower readmission rates (adjusted relative risk: 0.86, 95% CI: 0.75–0.98, p = 0.02). Costs were similar between the two hospital types (mean difference in costs within 180 days of transfer: -$3,580, 95% CI: -$8,720 –$1,550, p = 0.17).ConclusionsCompared to patients in free-standing LTACs, patients in co-located LTACs experience slightly higher mortality but lower readmission rates, with no change in overall resource use as measured by 180 day costs.
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