• D W Crippen, M M Bonetti, J W Hoyt, and B R Martin.
• Medical/Surgical ICU, St. Francis Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15201.
• Crit. Care Med. 1989 Jul 1;17(7):601-6.

AbstractA ground-based mobile ICU, two medical evacuation helicopters, and a specially equipped fixed wing aircraft were utilized by a critical care transport team, staffed by a critical care physician, ICU nurse, critical care technologist, and respiratory therapist to facilitate regionalization of critical care services from small community hospitals to a central tertiary care facility. Survival, length of stay, age, actual hospital cost, and reimbursement were evaluated retrospectively for 81 Medicare patients transported by the team to a tertiary care facility during a 33-month period. All patients had acute, nontraumatic, medical/surgical illnesses, primarily cardiac. Forty-four (54%) patients were discharged home alive. Average hospital cost per patient was $36,059.00, average Medicare reimbursement was $13,802.00, and average hospital loss was $22,256.00. We show that regionalization to tertiary care facilities can facilitate access to critical care technology, but the Medicare reimbursement system of diagnosis-related groups makes this concept financially prohibitive for the tertiary care hospital.

16 keywords...

hide…