Survey details significant rise in intensivists working in U.S. ICUs
More than 90% of all U.S. ICUs have intensivists available, according to a survey that measured prepandemic ICU staffing. In comparison, research from 1997 shows less than 40% of ICU patients received care from an intensivist.
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By Gianna Melillo
The presence of intensivists in adult U.S. ICUs has substantially increased over the last 25 years, a recent study found.
Between May 2022 and February 2023, researchers carried out
a cross-sectional survey among adult ICU clinicians asking respondents to report on pre-COVID-19 staffing. Participants were contacted using information from the 2020 American Hospital Association (AHA) database and from professional organizations. A total of 596 ICUs from 478 hospitals were included in the cohort, each with a median of 20 beds. Investigators also linked survey data with hospital data in the AHA database to create weighted national estimates by extrapolating staffing data to hospitals that didn't respond. Findings were published by
CHEST on May 21.
Of the total ICUs included, 554 (93%) had intensivists available. These physicians cared for all patients in 75.6% of ICUs and were on site 24 hours per day in half of the ICUs (53.3% weekdays; 51.8% weekends). Intensivists oversaw a median of 12 beds on weekdays and 12 beds on weekends. A total of 69.8% of all ICUs had physicians-in-training and 77.7% had nurse practitioners/physician assistants. Nurse-to-patient ratios for mechanically ventilated patients were 1:2 in 89.6% of ICUs. Nearly 93% of ICUs had clinical pharmacists available and 98.8% had respiratory therapists.
Overall, the authors estimated that 85.1% of the 478 hospitals had ICUs with intensivists. In addition, they estimated that 51.6% of hospitals had physicians-in-training (95% CI, 50.6% to 52.5%); 72.1% had nurse practitioners/physician assistants (95% CI, 71.3% to 72.9%); 98.5% had respiratory therapists (95% CI, 98.4% to 98.7%); and 86.9% had clinical pharmacists (95% CI, 86.4% to 87.4%). A total of 86.4% hospitals used a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:2 for mechanically ventilated patients.
According to the authors, the last comprehensive evaluation of intensivists in U.S. ICUs (the COMPACCS study) took place in 1997. That study found less than 40% of ICU patients received care from an intensivist and just 26% of ICUs had high-intensity intensivist staffing, defined as at least 80% of patients managed by a full-time or consulting intensivist on the day of the survey.
In the current study, "the intensivists provided care to most or all patients in the overwhelming majority of these units, but usually shared responsibility of order placement with other teams," the authors wrote. They added the findings "might be used to identify areas for quality improvement, such as the continued gap in intensivist involvement for all ICU patients, even when available."
More research is needed to understand the presence of other allied health workers in the ICU and how these clinicians come together as teams, the authors said. In addition, they concluded, "understanding the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on the number of ICU beds, changes in ICU team makeup, and workforce attrition needs quantification."