Intensive care unit discharge policies prior to treatment completion

Abstract

In this study we explore a model to optimize the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) discharging decisions prior to service completion as a result of capacity-constrained situation under uncertainty. Discharging prior to service completion, which is called demand-driven discharge or premature discharging, increases the chance that a patient to be readmitted to the ICU in the near future. Since readmission imposes an additional load on ICUs, the cost of demand-driven discharge is pertained to the surge of readmission chance and the length of stay (LOS) in the ICU after readmission. Hence, the problem is how to select a current patient in the ICU for demand-driven discharge to accommodate a new critical..