Development and implementation of a risk identification tool to facilitate critical care transitions for high-risk surgical patients.

Quality problem: Patients recently discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU) are at high risk for clinical deterioration.

Initial assessment: Unreliable and incomplete handoffs of complex patients contributed to preventable ICU readmissions. Respiratory decompensation was responsible for four times as many readmissions as other causes.

Choice of solution: Form a multidisciplinary team to address care coordination surrounding the transfer of patients from the ICU to the surgical ward.

Implementation: A quality improvement intervention incorporating verbal handoffs, time-sensitive patient evaluations and visual cues was piloted over a 1-year period in consecutive high-risk surgical patients discharged from the ICU. Process metrics and clinical outcomes were compared to historical controls.

Evaluation: The intervention brought the primary team and respiratory therapists to the bedside for a baseline examination within 60 min of ward arrival. Stakeholders viewed the intervention as such a valuable adjunct to patient care that the intervention has become a standard of care. While not significant, in a comparatively older and sicker intervention population, the rate of readmissions due to respiratory decompensation was 12.5%, while 35.0% in the control group (P = 0.28).

Lessons learned: The implementation of this ICU transition protocol is feasible and internationally applicable, and results in improved care coordination and communication for a high-risk group of patients.