Objective
Clinical guidelines for the acute management of emergency department (ED) patients with severe sepsis encourage the placement of central venous catheters (CVC). Data examining the timing of CVC insertion among critically ill patients admitted from the ED are limited. We examined the hypothesis that prompt CVC insertion during hospitalization among patients admitted from the ED acts as a surrogate marker for early aggressive care in the management of critically ill patients.
Design
Retrospective cross sectional analysis of ED visits using 2003-2006 discharge data from California, State Inpatient Databases (SID), Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Setting
General medical or general surgical hospitals (n=310).
Patients
Patient hospitalizations beginning in the ED with the two most common diagnoses associated with CVC (sepsis and respiratory arrest.)
Interventions
None.
Measurements and Main Results
We identified the occurrence and timing of CVC using International Classification of Diseases, Clinical Modifications, 9th Revision procedure codes. The primary outcomes measured were annual CVCs per 1000 hospitalizations that began in the ED occurring emergently (procedure day 0), urgently (procedure day 1-2), or late (procedure day 3 or later). A total of 129,288 hospital discharges had evidence of CVC. In 2003 5,759 CVCs were placed emergently compared to 10,469 in 2006. The rate of emergent CVC/1000 increased annually from 228 in 2003, 239 in 2004, 257 in 2005, up to 269 in 2006. Urgent and late CVC rates trended down (p<.001). In a multilevel model the odds of undergoing emergent CVC relative to 2003 increased annually: 1.08 (95%CI, 1.03 to 1.12) in 2004, 1.19 (95%CI, 1.14 to 1.23) in 2005, and 1.28 (95%CI, 1.23 to 1.33) in 2006.
Conclusions
CVCs are inserted earlier and more frequently among critically ill patients admitted from the ED. Earlier CVC insertion may require systematic changes to meet increasing utilization and enhanced mechanisms to measure CVC outcomes.