Nurses' Perceptions of In-Hospital Versus Telephone Availability of an Intensivist at Night in an Intensive Care Unit.

Background: Evidence suggests that in-person management by nighttime intensivists does not change patients' mortality rates in high-intensity intensive care units.

Objective: To better understand domains affected by nighttime intensivist staffing not previously measured.

Methods: Semistructured interviews of 13 night-shift nurses in an academic medical intensive care unit to elicit perceptions of nighttime staffing with attending intensivists versus residents with attending intensivists on call remotely.