Table 1.
Hospital and demographic characteristics for participating centers
| Characteristic | Hospital Albert Einstein | Hospital Geral do Grajaú | Hospital Governador Celso Ramos | Hospital Universitário da UFSC | Hospital dos Servidores do Estado de SP | |
| (Center 1) | (Center 2) | (Center 3) | (Center 4) | (Center 5) | ||
| Type | Private tertiary hospital | Public community hospital managed by a private university | Public tertiary hospital with a regional trauma center | Public University hospital | Public tertiary teaching hospital | |
| Number of beds | 400 | 249 | 272 | 255 | 391 | |
| Number of ICU beds | 28 | 12 | 12 | 06 | 16 | |
| Stepdown unit | Yes | No | No | No | No | |
| Mean monthly hospital admissions | 1400 | 1050 | 503 | 624 | 2184 | |
| Mean monthly ICU admissions | 170 | 38 | 46 | 25 | 103 | |
| Enrollment period | 21 May to 10 October 2001 | 21 May to 10 October 2001 | 21 May to 10h October 2001 | 21 May to 10 October 2001 | 1 November to 31 January 2002 | Overall |
| Number of ICU admissions | 837 | 194 | 228 | 124 | 305 | 1688 |
| Number of excluded patients | 100 | 02 | 07 | 10 | 13 | 132 |
| Number of missed patients | 134 | 11 | 02 | 12 | 14 | 173 |
| Number of enrolled patients | 603 | 181 | 219 | 102 | 278 | 1383 |
| Ratio of >24 h patients to all patients | 0.59 | 0.80 | 0.57 | 0.75 | 0.64 | 0.64 |
| Mean ICU LOS, days | 1 (1–4) | 4 (2–9) | 2 (1–7) | 2 (1–6) | 2 (1–6) | 2 (1–6) |
| Overall ICU mortality rate,% | 11.6 | 38.25 | 27.7 | 28.7 | 26.1 | 21.8 |
ICU, intensive care unit; LOS, length of stay. Figures in parentheses are interquartile ranges.