Best Practices in Oral Care.
Barbara Quinn
PMID 37257868WHAT IT FOUND
ICU survivors who experience delirium are far more likely to be readmitted or discharged to facilities.
Nurses must assess cognitive status and use tools like the Mini-Cog before discharge to identify risks that standard severity scores miss.
Key findings
01ICU patients who experienced delirium were consistently more likely to have emergency room visits and hospital readmissions than those who did not.
02Severity-of-illness scores do not predict functional outcomes after hospital discharge or readmission, requiring specific cognitive assessments.
03Assessing patients at random times may result in false-negative delirium results because delirium is a fluctuating state.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This is a narrative review, not a systematic review or meta-analysis, so it does not provide pooled effect sizes. The search was limited to articles published in English between 2012 and 2022. The review synthesizes existing literature rather than testing a new intervention, so it cannot prove that specific nursing actions reduce readmissions in isolation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a patient's low severity-of-illness score means they are safe for discharge. The review states these scores do not predict functional outcomes or readmission, and that delirium assessments can be false negatives if timed poorly.