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  • Geriatric monitoring units could provide solution to ICU overcrowding and improve survival in older hospitalised patients

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Care of the older person
Quantitative study - other
Geriatric monitoring units could provide solution to ICU overcrowding and improve survival in older hospitalised patients
  1. Cynthia J Brown
  1. Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Cynthia J Brown, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, CH-19, Room 201, 1720 2nd Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA; cynthiabrown{at}uabmc.edu

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/eb-2017-102672

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    Commentary on: Abramovitch A, Friedmann R, Zevin S, et al. Operating a monitoring unit in the Geriatric Department: effects on outcomes. J Am Geriatr Soc 2017;65:427–32.

    Implications for practice and research

    • Geriatric monitoring units could help alleviate the problem of too few intensive care unit beds while maximising survival for older hospitalised patients.

    • Determining the appropriate level of care for the heterogeneous population cared for in the hospital is an important research question.

    Context

    In many countries, cost constraints have led to insufficient numbers of intensive care unit (ICU) beds.1 Given the ageing population and the increasing acuity of illness of hospitalised patients,2 some hospitals have responded to this need by opening department-based monitoring units (MUs).3 The MU provides a level of care that is higher and more specialised than that received in an …

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.