Refusal to ICU admission based on futility

Refusal to ICU admission based on futility

Methods Observational study in the time interval from July 2013 to December 2014 (18 months). We prospectively registered all patients refused to admission in our unit, then we analyze the clinical refusal report used in our hospital. From these reports we extracted several variables: demographical (age, sex), origin (emergency room, hospital), clinical (comorbidity), functional situation (base...

Influence of ICU-bed availability on ICU admission decisions

BACKGROUND The potential influence of bed availability on triage to intensive care unit (ICU) admission is among the factors that may influence the ideal ratio of ICU beds to population: thus, high bed availability (HBA) may result in the admission of patients too well or too sick to benefit, whereas bed scarcity may result in refusal of patients likely to benefit from ICU admission. METHODS ...

After hours admission to icu - impact on mortality

Objectives We aim to explore differences in mortality between patients admitted during working hours (8am-5pm on weekdays and 8am-11am on weekends) compared to those admitted after hours. Methods This is a retrospective cohort study of admissions to a medical ICU in a tertiary teaching hospital between 2010-2014. All patients with known APACHE II scores were analysed. Primary outcome measure wa...

Can ICU admission be predicted?

The influence of religious beliefs on health care: between medical futility and refusal of treatment.

The problem of respecting the patients' religious-based decisions seems to play increasingly important role in medical practice. Most probably it happens because: (i) bioethical standards accentuate the principle of the respect for autonomy (the departure form medical paternalism) and (ii) the contacts between people belonging to different religious traditions are becoming more and more frequen...