Abstract
BACKGROUND: Tracheostomy practice in patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF) varies greatly among institutions. This variability has the potential to be reflected in the resources expended providing care. In various healthcare environments, increased resource expenditure has been associated with a favorable effect on outcome.
OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between institutional resource expenditure and mortality in ARF patients managed with tracheostomy.
METHODS: We developed analytic models employing the University Health Systems Consortium (Oakbrook, Illinois) database. Administrative coding data were used to identify patients with the principal diagnosis of ARF, procedures, complications, post-discharge destination, and survival. Mean resource intensity of participating academic medical centers was determined using risk-adjusted estimates of costs. Mortality risk was determined using a multivariable approach that incorporated patient-level demographic and clinical variables and institution-level resource intensity.
RESULTS: We analyzed data from 44,124 ARF subjects, 4,776 (10.8%) of whom underwent tracheostomy. Compared to low-resource-intensity settings, treatment in high-resource-intensity academic medical centers was associated with increased risk of mortality (odds ratio 1.11, 95% CI 1.05–1.76), including those managed with tracheostomy (odds ratio high-resource-intensity academic medical center with tracheostomy 1.10, 95% CI 1.04–1.17). We examined the relationship between complication development and outcome. While neither the profile nor number of complications accumulated differed comparing treatment environments (P > .05 for both), mortality for tracheostomy patients experiencing complications was greater in high-resource-intensity (95/313, 30.3%) versus low-resource-intensity (552/2,587, 21.3%) academic medical centers (P < .001).
CONCLUSIONS: We were unable to demonstrate a positive relationship between resource expenditure and outcome in ARF patients managed with tracheostomy.
- tracheostomy
- acute respiratory failure
- mechanical ventilation
- critical illness
- practice variation
- quality assurance
Footnotes
- Correspondence: Bradley D Freeman MD, Department of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 South Euclid Avenue, Box 8109, St Louis MO 63110.
Dr Freeman presented a version of this paper at the annual meeting of the United States Critical Illness and Injuries Trials Group, held November 6, 2012, in Bethesda, Maryland.
This research was partly supported National Institutes of Health grant UL1 RR02499. The authors have disclosed no conflicts of interest.
Supplementary material related to this paper is available at http://www.rcjournal.com.
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