A national profile of the use of intensive care by medicare patients with cancer

Abstract

Contrary to the conclusions drawn from previous research, these findings suggest that patients who receive less intense service and use fewer hospital resources are more likely to die in the hospital than those who receive more care, with or without a stay in the ICU during the hospitalization. A global view of ICU use does not support the conclusion that a disproportionate share of special care resources is expended on futile care of the terminally ill or excessive monitoring of low risk patients, although these problems undoubtedly exist. Analysis of comprehensive national data regarding the use of intensive care provides a perspective that challenges some of the conclusions based on more limited studies that were conducted in single hospitals and focused on nonsurvivors or subsets of patients narrowly defined in other ways.