Changes in diagnostic patterns and resource utilisation in Swiss adult ICUs during the first two COVID-19 waves: an exploratory study

CONCLUSIONS: Based on a comprehensive national data set, our report describes the profound changes triggered by COVID-19 over one year in Swiss ICUs. We observed an overall decrease in admissions and a shift in admission types, with fewer planned hospitalisations, suggesting the loss of approximately 3000 elective interventions. We found a substantial increase in unplanned admissions due to respiratory diagnoses, a doubling of ARDS cases requiring isolation, an increase in ICU LOS associated with substantial nationwide growth in ICU days, an augmented need for life-sustaining therapies and specific therapeutic resources and worse outcomes.PMID:38579322 | DOI:10.57187/s.3589
Source: Swiss Medical Weekly - Category: General Medicine Authors: Source Type: research