Factors in intensive care unit admission decisions

Intensive care is a special and costly medical service. A patient in the ICU is under a great deal of physical and emotional burden. The aim is to significantly increase survival rates and quality of life. At the same time, transfers to the ICU must be done with the patients' agreement. The patients are mainly frail and elderly persons and persons with serious illnesses and therefore poor prognoses. The decision-making process has to be fair. When the circumstances are assessed, all patients should be treated equitably.

This study aims to find out what factors form the basis for physicians' decisions to transfer or not transfer a hospital patient to the ICU. Inter-views with internists and intensive care physicians form one part of the study. In addition, decision criteria will be evaluated by questionnaire. The study aims to find out, for one, whether ICU physicians’ assess-ments of the likelihood of death of patients planned to be transferred to the ICU are the same as ward physicians' assessments. For another, the aim is to uncover what factors these assessments are based on.

The results of the study should contribute towards discovering possible improvements in admission of patients to the ICU and towards developing strategies for equitable distribution of these health care resources.

Medical and non-medical factors that influence the decision to admit a seriously ill patient to intensive care