Do we spend less on older critically ill patients? Relationship among intensity of care, severity of illness and mortality

The Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System (TISS-28) quantifies the type and number of intensive care treatments; therefore, it indicates the workload of ICU and may be used for calculating costs [1]. A previous cohort study [2] demonstrated that seriously ill older patients receive fewer invasive procedures and less resource-intensive hospital care, showing a preferential allocation of hospital services to younger patients regardless of severity of illness. The objective of this study is also to compare resource utilization across different ages of critically ill patients in an open model, mixed ICU.