ArticleAnnals of intensive care2021
Impact of ICU transfers on the mortality rate of patients with COVID-19: insights from comprehensive national database in France.
Article in Annals of intensive care, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Inter-hospital ICU-to-ICU transfer of critically ill COVID-19 patients is not associated with increased mortality: a systematic review with exploratory meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2026Pooled it
- Territorial Vulnerabilities and Healthcare Capacity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Spatiotemporal Study of Hospitalizations and Mortality in a Large Metropolitan Area in Brazil.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- [Experiences from SARS-CoV-2 pandemic at UKSH Lübeck].Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin · 2026Article
- High-speed trains versus air transport vectors for mass transfers of critically ill patients: The TRANSCOV cohort study.PloS one · 2026Article
- Impact of prefecture-level intensive care unit congestion on mortality in severe COVID-19 patients: a retrospective observational study in Japan.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Observational
- Ranking Nursing Diagnoses by Predictive Relevance for Intensive Care Unit Transfer Risk in Adult and Pediatric Patients: A Machine Learning Approach with Random Forest.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Interhospital transports and mortality in patients with critical COVID-19: a single-centre cohort study.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Observational
- Policy Proposals for Mitigating Intensive Care Unit Strain: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2024Article
- Assessing the impact of Delta and Omicron in German intensive care units: a retrospective, nationwide multistate analysis.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Period of hospitalization and mortality in transferred versus non-transferred COVID-19 patients: results from Germany.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Forecasting local hospital bed demand for COVID-19 using on-request simulations.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Critical care and pandemic preparedness and response.British journal of anaesthesia · 2023Review
- The association of intensive care capacity transfers with survival in COVID-19 patients from a Scottish district general hospital: A retrospective cohort study.Journal of the Intensive Care Society · 2023Article
- The positive impact of COVID-19 on critical care: from unprecedented challenges to transformative changes, from the perspective of young intensivists.Annals of intensive care · 2023Review
- Major interregional differences in France of COVID-19 hospitalization and mortality from January to June 2020.Revue d'epidemiologie et de sante publique · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 8 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic confronted healthcare systems around the world with unprecedented organizational challenges, particularly regarding the availability of intensive care unit (ICU) beds. One strategy implemented in France to alleviate healthcare pressure during the first COVID-19 wave was inter-hospital transfers of selected ICU patients from overwhelmed areas towards less saturated ones. At the time, the impact of this transfer strategy on patient mortality was unknown. We aimed to compare in-hospital mortality rates among ICU patients with COVID-19 who were transferred to another healthcare facility and those who remained in the hospital where they were initially admitted to.
methodA prospective observational study was performed from 1 March to 21 June 2020. Data regarding hospitalized patients with COVID-19 were collected from the Ministry of Health-affiliated national SI-VIC registry. The primary endpoint was in-hospital mortality.
resultsIn total, 93,351 hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients were registered, of which 18,348 (19.6%) were ICU admissions. Transferred patients (n = 2228) had a lower mortality rate than their non-transferred counterparts (n = 15,303), and the risk decreased with increasing transfer distance (odds ratio (OR) 0.7, 95% CI: 0.6-0.9, p = 0.001 for transfers between 10 and 50 km, and OR 0.3, 95% CI: 0.2-0.4, p < 0.0001 for transfer distance > 200 km). Mortality decreased overall over the 3-month study period.
conclusionsOur study shows that the mortality rates were lower for patients with severe COVID-19 who were transferred between ICUs across regions, or internationally, during the first pandemic wave in France. However, the global mortality rate declined overall during the study. Transferring selected patients with COVID-19 from overwhelmed regions to areas with greater capacity may have improved patient access to ICU care, without compounding the short-term mortality risk of transferred patients.
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