Anticipating pediatric patient transfers from intermediate to intensive care

Background Pediatric intermediate care units (IC) function to provide a higher level of inpatient pediatric care such as frequent monitoring or nursing intervention compared to routine inpatient general pediatric care. A small subset of these patients in IC deteriorate further and require transfer to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). By identifying patient characteristics at the time of admission that predict secondary transfer, specific monitoring, resource allocation and early intervention may be …