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Urgent tracheal intubation in general hospital units: an observational study
William J Benedetto1, Dean R Hess, Elise Gettings
1Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
Study Objective:
To determine the frequency of complications and outcomes of urgent intubations in general hospital units.
Design:
Prospective, observational, cohort study.
Setting:
University-affiliated hospital.
Patients:
150 patients who underwent tracheal intubation in the general care units.
Interventions:
A standardized data collection form was used prospectively to record events at the time of intubation. Patient outcomes were extracted from the medical record.
Measurements And Main Results:
The complication rate was 27%. The most common complications were multiple attempts (9% required>2 intubations) and esophageal intubation (9%). The complication rate for elective intubation (22%) was similar to the complication rate for emergent intubations (27%). Of patients intubated in the general care units, 52% survived and 33% of these were discharged. There was no significant difference (P=0.46) in survival between the patients intubated electively (59%) and emergently (50%). There was no significant difference (P=0.63) in survival between patients with (48%) and without complications (54%).
Conclusions:
Endotracheal intubation in general hospital units carries a high rate of complications, and patients who are intubated in general hospital units have a high mortality.
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