Multidisciplinary Decision Making Needed for Patient Transfers

I confess to some disappointment upon reading the Garland and Connors¹  article in AJCC’s September issue.

First, I noted that none of the references come from nursing journals or are about intensive care unit (ICU) nurses and transfers. When I access Ovid and search the combination of Intensive Care/Intensive Care Units/Critical Care plus patient transfer plus nurse, I find 86 references since 1995. Surely at least 1 would be relevant.

Second, it appears that only physicians care for ICU patients, as the “team” described is only an intensivist, a fellow, and house officers. I demonstrated in 2 observational studies^2–3  that when medical ICU nurses believed there had been collaboration in making the decision to transfer a patient out of the unit, patients were less likely to die or be readmitted.

It is possible that rather than looking for an objective...