• M S Gavelli, A A Arista, R Fiore, and V Tagariello.
• Servizio di Anestesia e Rianimazione, Ospedale San Pietro Fatebenefratelli, Rome, Italy.
• Minerva Anestesiol. 2001 Jan 1;67(1-2):55-60.

BackgroundTo understand in- and out-patients flow to and from an ICU during a year (1998). The setting of the study was an 8-beds Intensive Care Unit of a 480-beds General Hospital with an Emergency Department.MethodsRetrospective analysis by a specific designed software of all patient data extrapolated from the hospital database, in order to: 1) Divide all ICU patients in four groups, according to the first admission Department; 2) Classify all ICU patients into 3 subgroups: a) medical; b) surgical; c) trauma; 3) Evaluate the different needs of ICU resources in these different patient populations.ResultsTwo hundred and fifty-four patients were admitted to our ICU during the study period (1.2% of all admissions). The mean duration of ICU stay was 10.4 days. Thirty-five per cent of ICU admissions came from the Emergency Department, 61% of ICU patients were discharged to another hospital ward, while the remaining 7% had to be transferred to a different hospital; 2.8% of our patients had ICU re-admissions. The overall mortality rate was 32%.ConclusionsCompared with previously reported data, a lower re-admission rate (3%), a longer mean stay in the ICU (>10 days) and a higher occupancy rate (91.4%) were observed. These data suggest that a large part of the available resources for the intensive care in our hospital are devoted to the in-hospital patient care. The hypothesis is suggested that this could be mainly due to the lack of sub-critical care areas.

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