Acute Coronary Syndromes and Heart Failure Critical Care Units Utilization and Outcomes in Teaching and Community Hospitals: A National Population-Based Analysis

Acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and heart failure (HF) are the leading diagnoses in patients admitted to critical care units (CCUs). Little is known about the differences between CCU resource use and outcomes across hospital types. The Canadian Institute for Health Information was used to identify patients hospitalized with primary diagnoses of ACS or HF. CCUs were categorized as teaching, large community, medium community, and small community hospitals. Outcomes included CCU rates of admission, use of critical care therapy/procedures, and in-hospital mortality. Among 204,900 patients hospitalized with ACS or HF, 73,338 (35.8%, hospital range 0% to 81.4%) were admitted to CCUs, and it varied across hospital types: 41.0% in teaching, 30.0% in large, 45.4% in medium, and 30.9% in small community hospitals (P < 0.001). The percentage of patients admitted to CCUs who received critical care therapies in teaching, large, medium, and small hospitals were as follows: 73.6%, 50.9%, 24.6%, and 8.8% (P < 0.0001). Compared with the in-hospital mortality rate for patients admitted to CCUs in teaching hospitals (8.2%), outcomes were worse for CCU patients in large (11.0%, adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.50; 95% CI, 1.19-1.90), medium (10.5%, aOR 1.56; 95% CI, 1.27-1.92), and small community hospitals (9.2%, aOR 1.59; 95% CI, 1.20-2.10). Patients admitted with ACS or HF to teaching hospital CCUs had a higher observed use of critical care therapies and lower mortality compared with community hospitals. These differences highlight the need to examine differences in CCU admission thresholds, resource utilization, and outcomes across hospitals types.