Reducing night-time discharge from intensive care. A nationwide improvement project with public display of ICU outcomes

Discharge from an intensive care unit (ICU) during the night is an independent risk factor for adverse outcomes. A quality improvement project was conducted with the aim of reducing the incidence and the associated mortality after night-time discharge. ICUs that submitted data to the Swedish Intensive Care Registry (SIR) agreed to appoint night-time discharge as a national quality indicator with detailed public display on the internet of various discharge proportions and outcomes. The registry was then examined for trends during a 10-year period with use of multilevel mixed-effects models. We analysed 163,371 patients who were discharged alive from 70 ICUs to a general ward within the same hospital during 2006–2015. The prevalence of night-time discharge fell from 7.0% (95% CI: 5.2 to 8.7%) in 2006 to 4.9% (95% CI: 4.3 to 5.5%) in 2015 (P = .035 for trend). The original increased risk of death within 30 days after night-time discharge in 2006–2010, OR 1.20 (95% CI: 1.01 to 1.42), disappeared in 2011–2015, OR 1.06 (95% CI: 0.96 to 1.17). During the 10-year period of the quality improvement project, the annual prevalence and risk of death within 30-days after night-time discharge were reduced. The public display and feedback of audit data could have helped in achieving this.