Analysis of the number of beds required in trauma intensive care unit in the branch campus of a tertiary hospital in Beijing / 中华急诊医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:Severe trauma events are emergent, with low incidence and unpredictable. Current guideline does not provide precise recommendations on how the trauma centers should arrange the number of beds in trauma intensive care units while making rational use of medical resources. We analyzed the trauma intensive care unit bed requirement in the branch campus of our hospital to propose a reasonable assessment.Methods:Patients with severe trauma sent to the Intensive Care Unit of Peking University People's Hospital from January 2022 to June 2022 were collected. The daily number of patients received intensive care was counted. The bed requirement of the intensive care unit covering 99% of clinical needs was calculated based on the probability distribution function.Results:From January 2022 to June 2022, 103 patients with severe trauma [74 males and 29 females, aged (51.47±16.06) years, ranging 16 to 87 years] were included in the study. Among the 103 patients, 57 were injured in traffic accidents, 26 fell from a high altitude, 12 fell, 4 were hit by heavy objects, and 4 were stabbed. TISS ranged from 16 to 50. The range of the daily bed requirement in the intensive care unit was 0–10, which was consistent with the Poisson distribution. According to the probability distribution function, nine trauma intensive care beds could meet 99.19% of clinical needs.Conclusions:In severe traumatic events, patients need to be transferred to intensive care unit as soon as possible. For our branch campus, nine trauma intensive care beds can cover more than 99% of clinical needs. It follows that, in accordance with the basic requirements of trauma center construction, hospitals with trauma centers need at least 9 beds in intensive care units. However, traumatic events cannot be predicted; thus, the bed requirement needs to be regularly evaluated.