Comparative study on the prognosis of critical ill patients transferred from another island compared to those patients transferred from emergency department to intensive care unit

OBJECTIVE: To compare outcomes of critically ill patients transferred from another island compared to those patients with direct admission from Emergency Department to intensive care unit (ICU). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Retrospective study of prospectively collected data during 8 years. The population studied was all critical adult patients transferred from another island to our hospital and those directly admitted from the Emergency Department. Variables were age, sex, clinical diagnosis (coronary, medical, surgical, or trauma), acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE) II score at admission, ICU days of stay, days of mechanical ventilation and ICU mortality. RESULTS: During the period of study, 3,115 patients coming from Emergency Department (Group 1) were admitted to our ICU and 138 were transferred from another island (Group 2). No significant statistically differences were found between both groups neither age, sex, APACHE II, ICU days, days of mechanical ventilation, and mortality rate (17.5% versus 20.3%, P = 0.43). The multivariate analysis showed that age, APACHE II score, ICU days of stay, type of patient, and days of mechanical ventilation were independent variables associated with mortality. CONCLUSIONS: No differences were found in the global prognosis of the admitted patients transferred from another island compared to those who were admitted directly from the Emergency Department. There is no impact on mortality in transferring a patient in our study population.