Maximizing Interhospital Transfer Resources for Neurosurgical Patients.

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Maximizing Interhospital Transfer Resources for Neurosurgical Patients.

World Neurosurg. 2017 May 23;:

Authors: Schnurman Z, Chin R, Fishkin ER, Huang PP

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Delays in patient transfers are associated with worse outcomes for some neurosurgical conditions. One of the primary causes of transfer delay is lack of neurosurgery ICU bed availability. In this study, we characterize the results of implementing an interhospital transfer protocol to reduce unnecessary transfers and improve bed availability.
METHODS: A transfer protocol was implemented in July 2012 at the Bellevue Hospital Department of Neurosurgery that screened for and prevented transfer of low-risk patients that were unlikely to require specialized inpatient neurosurgical care. The impact of this protocol was assessed with prospectively recorded data on all potential interhospital transfers from May 2011 through June 2016.
RESULTS: Of the 1978 calls (regarding 1886 individual patients), 402 occurred prior to the implementation of the transfer protocol and 1576 occurred after. Prior to the protocol, 84.1% of transfer requests were accepted but 15.2% were subsequently denied for bed unavailability. After the protocol, a smaller share of transfer requests were accepted after protocol screening (71.8%, p<.001), but only 1.9% (p<.001) were subsequently denied because of bed unavailability. The diagnosis demographics changed significantly (p<.001), with a larger share of arriving transfers suffering from aneurysms or tumors after the protocol and a smaller share suffering from stenosis/disc disease without neurological symptoms.
CONCLUSIONS: The transfer protocol implemented in this study allowed transfer determination based on the need for specialized neurosurgical care rather than chance unavailability of beds. Developing interhospital transfer protocols may be an effective strategy to efficiently allocate limited hospital resources and improve transfer systems.

PMID: 28549644 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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