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Elderly patients are at high risk of night-time admission to the intensive care unit following a rapid response team call.
Intern Med J. 2016 Dec;46(12):1440-1442
Authors: Sundararajan K, Flabouris A, Thompson C, Seppelt I, George Institute of Global Health and the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group Point Prevalence study Investigators
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that elderly patients (age ≥65 years) are less likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit following a rapid response team call and have high hospital mortality rates. This study has shown that elderly patients have a significantly higher probability of being admitted to an intensive care unit following a rapid response team call at night than during the day. However, at no time are they at greater risk than younger patients of incomplete vital sign recording, a failure to escalate care for acute deterioration or mortality.
PMID: 27981774 [PubMed - in process]