The Use of SCORE and GRACE Risk Tools to Assess the Length of Stay in a Cardiac Intensive Care Unit

The possibility of using simple and effective models to estimate the patient’s length of stay in intensive care units is decisive to support the clinical professional decisions. These models can help professionals in the stratification process and, particularly, in the identification of the necessary intervention plan to improve the patient’s health condition. In clinical practice specific prognostic scores are available and validated in the cardiovascular context. These risk tools address the primary prevention domain, as well as the secondary prevention domain, usually involving long-term (years) and short-term (months) prediction periods, respectively.