Primary Intensivists and Primary Nurses to Decrease Pediatric ICU Length of Stay

Long-stay intensive care unit (ICU) patients, or children who require prolonged hospitalization in the pediatric ICU (PICU), represent a minority of PICU patients but have a disproportionate impact on hospital resources and unfavorable outcomes, including morbidity, mortality, and repeated critical illness. These patients and their families have multifaceted needs (eg, tailored communication) that pose unique challenges to PICU providers and the parent-provider relationship. These experiences and needs are compounded and complicated by the transitory care that is typically provided by PICU. This transitory care may contribute to 1) patient/family dissatisfaction; 2) ineffective passing of important information day to day and week to week; and 3) delayed decision-making. These latter two potential consequences may, in turn, contribute to prolonged length of stay (LOS).

For these reasons, the investigators propose a randomized control trial to test whether primary intensivists and primary nurses can decrease PICU LOS for long-stay patients. A primary intensivist is one that remains a consistent physician-presence for the patient/family and PICU team throughout the child's PICU stay, despite changes in the intensivist(s) who orchestrates day-to-day management. Primary nurses are a team of PICU nurses who provide the all/most of the bedside care to the child. The investigators hypothesize that the long-stay PICU patients who are randomized to receive primary intensivists and nurses will have a statistically lower LOS than those patients who do not.