As the treatment of many patients shifts from the hospital setting to home or other alternative
health care settings, health care delivery in the intensive care unit (ICU) continues to face
new and difficult challenges. First, this shift in patient care has caused an increase in the
severity of illness among patients receiving care in the hospital compared with hospitalized
patients of the previous decade. This shift may partially explain the changes in hospital
demographics among hospitals participating in the Centers for Disease Control and …