• Haun de Oliveira Olivia O Department of Critical Care Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2075 Bayview Avenue, Room D108, Toronto, ON M4N3M5, Canada., Ruxandra Pinto, Tracey DasGupta, Leda Sirtartchouck, Laura Rashleigh, Nicole Cross, Aruchana Srikandarajah, Jaya Sukumaran, Hannah Wunsch, and Brian H Cuthbertson.
• Department of Critical Care Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2075 Bayview Avenue, Room D108, Toronto, ON M4N3M5, Canada.
• J Crit Care. 2019 Oct 1; 53: 91-97.

PurposeCritical care beds are commonly described in three levels (highest level 3, lowest level 1). We aimed to describe the actual level of care for patients assigned to level 2 in a tertiary hospital with inadequate level 1 bed capacity.Materials And MethodsProspective cohort study with daily assessment of level of care. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients who could be triaged to level 1 for the entirety of their ICU stay. Secondary outcomes included the percentage of patients who could receive level 1 care on any given day.Results289 patients originally classified as level 2 were assessed for the primary, and 335 for the secondary outcomes. 14.9% could be level 1 for their entire ICU stay. 20.6%, once appropriate for level 1, remained in that level for the rest of their ICU stay. 23.6% of the assessments were suitable for level 1 on any given day.ConclusionIn a single centre, 14.9% of level 2 patients could have been cared for in a lower acuity bed for the entirety of their ICU stay. We believe this methodology is reproducible and can help resource allocation with regard to the high demand for critical care beds.Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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