Association of an Emergency Department-embedded Critical Care Unit with Hospital Outcomes and Intensive Care Unit Use.

A small but growing number of hospitals are experimenting with emergency department-embedded critical care units (CCUs) in an effort to improve the quality of care for critically ill patients with sepsis and acute respiratory failure (ARF). To evaluate the potential impact of an emergency department-embedded CCU at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania among patients with sepsis and ARF admitted from the emergency department to a medical ward or intensive care unit (ICU) from January 2016 to December 2017. The exposure was eligibility for admission to the emergency department-embedded CCU, which was defined as meeting a clinical definition for sepsis or ARF and admission to the emergency department during the intervention period on a weekday.