Background

Patients who survive an intensive care unit (ICU) stay are often left with physical, cognitive and emotional problems. This group of problems are known as Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS).

PICS can have a considerable impact on patients and caregivers as well as the health service, with 25% of ICU survivors experiencing unplanned hospitalisation readmission within 90 days of discharge.

Clinical staff and researchers have attempted to reduce this number; thus far, there is limited evidence to show that any intervention has helped. To date, no intervention has been shown to reduce hospital readmissions through supporting physical and social healthcare needs, before hospital discharge.

Approach

This project will employ a mixed methods approach, ensuring the design of a safe and effective intervention. Work will proceed through overlapping sequential phases with earlier phases facilitating and driving innovation in later research. Analyses will not run in isolation but will complement each other.

Methods include: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the previous literature in the area; analysis of social care patient records; research with patients, staff and caregivers about their experiences and quality improvement work to test an intervention across different hospital sites.

This project aims to create an integrated health and social care intervention which reduces hospital readmissions following critical illness. It will examine the challenges and opportunities which emerge from the implementation of this integrated model of care. Working with our PPI partners we will design and iteratively test this intervention, using Quality Improvement methodologies. Based on research recommendations and work in preparation, we anticipate this being a pro-active, preventative measure before hospital discharge.