RSS Feeds
What Conclusions Should Be Drawn between Critical Care Physician Management and Patient Mortality in the Intensive Care Unit?
- Thomas L. Higgins, MD, MBA;
- Brian Nathanson, PhD; and
- Daniel Teres, MD
- From Baystate Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Springfield, MA 01199; OptiStatim LLC, Longmeadow, MA 01106; and Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02111.
TO THE EDITOR:
We were intrigued by the results of Levy and colleagues' study (1), which demonstrated higher odds for hospital mortality in patients managed by critical care physicians. We recently used the Project IMPACT database (Cerner, Kansas City, Missouri) to update the Mortality Probability Model (MPM). Although our sample of 124 885 patients at 98 hospitals between October 2001 and March 2004 is not identical, the overlap is substantial. We analyzed the variable, “Percentage of patient stay managed by critical care physician/team.” In our sample, 68 179 patients (54.6%) were coded as 0% critical care …
This 100-word excerpt has been provided in the absence of an abstract.
