Highly Accessed Letter

A prolonged ICU stay after interhospital transport?

Joep M Droogh1*, Maurits H Renes1, Jack JM Ligtenberg2 and Jan G Zijlstra1

Author Affiliations

1 Department of Critical Care, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Hanzeplein 1, P.O. Box 30.001, 9700 RB Groningen, the Netherlands

2 Department of Emergency Medicine, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Hanzeplein 1, P.O. Box 30.001, 9700 RB Groningen, the Netherlands

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Critical Care 2012, 16:465 doi:10.1186/cc11857


See related research by Barratt et al., http://ccforum.com/content/16/5/R179

Published: 23 November 2012

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

Transport of critically ill patients can be complicated [1-3]. Barratt and colleagues studied patients transferred for nonclinical reasons to evaluate the consequences of transportation [4]. There was no difference in mortality but the ICU length of stay (LOS) increased by 3 days, which was explained as a negative impact of the transport on patient physiology. We disagree with this conclusion.