Skip to main content

Table 1 ICU discharge practices

From: Variation in rates of ICU readmissions and post-ICU in-hospital mortality and their association with ICU discharge practices

Discharge practice

Description

Discharge criteria

the usage of set criteria when making the decision to discharge a patient from the ICU

Bed manager

nurse or physician managing bed availability in ICU and step-down facilities

Early discharge planninga

starting with planning a discharge at least 24 h before the transfer of the patient to the ward

Step-down facilities

beds with less monitoring and a lower nurse-patient ratio than ICU beds, but more monitoring and a higher nurse-patient ratio then ward beds.

Medication reconciliationa

creating an actual medication overview of current medications, (temporarily stopped) home medication, and information about allergies. Home medication and allergy information is checked with the patient or relatives.

Verbal and written handoverb

oral and written information transfer by nurses, and oral and written information transfer by physicians

Monitoring of post-ICU patients

patients discharged from the ICU are visited on the ward and evaluated by ICU personnel

Consulting ICU nurses

an ICU nurse is 24/7 available for questions and assistance on the ward

  1. awe asked what percentage of patients received early discharge planning or medication reconciliation. If the median percentage or more percent of the patients received the interventions, the ICU was deemed to have implemented this practice
  2. bthe ICU was deemed to have implemented this practice if all four forms of communication at discharge were performed: oral nursing handover, written nursing handover, oral medical handover, and written medical handover