In the study, cost per visit for critically ill patients decreased by more than 20%.

Across the country, many intensive care units are strained for capacity. This prolongs the boarding process in the emergency department, when critically ill patients – for whom every minute and hour is crucial – wait for open ICU beds.

To provide more rapid access to critical care, University of Michigan Health opened its Emergency Critical Care Center in 2015, one of the first ICUs in the country to be housed within an emergency department.

A previous study found that the deployment of this model improved quality of care and patient outcomes by decreasing both mortality rates and ICU admission rates for emergency department patients. And according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open, the ED-based ICU model does so without raising costs.

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