ICU care for patients with gastrointestinal bleeding: impact on cost and outcome

Objective: To examine the factors which identify patients with gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) who benefit from intensive care unit (ICU) admission and the impact of ICU triage decisions on cost and outcome. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: Tertiary care university hospital, medical-surgical ICU. Patients: Adult patients with GIB. Interventions: None Measurements and main results: There were 124 patients with a diagnosis of gastrointestinal bleeding admitted to the hospital. Patients were grouped based on presence of the following risk factors: active bleeding, haemodynamic instability, and massive transfusion requirement (greater than five units of RBC) and admission to the ICU. Group 1 included patients who had one or no risk factor and were not admitted to the ICU. Group 2 included 30 patients who had one or no risk factor and were admitted to the ICU. There was no significant difference in mortality between these two groups of low risk patients. The average total hospital cost per patient ...