Here, the findings point to the main factors governing delirium in an acute setting: advanced age, admission type and dehydratation. As multicomponent strategies for the prevention of delirium have been developed for

the hospital setting [28], it is unclear whether or not initiation of these interventions in the ED would improve outcomes. Of note, many of these multicomponent interventions require extensive resources and may not be feasible to perform in the ED setting. Nonetheless, some evidence indicates that increasing awareness of delirium through a brief and inexpensive education of staff on acute medical wards improves the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical rate of delirium

detection [29,30]; this would be particularly optimal if associated with appropriate national guidelines and curriculums [29]. Therefore, simpler early detection-directed strategies focused on factors readily detectable by ED nursing and medical teams Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical may probably be more effective than complex interventions requiring rigorous Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical screening and specialized nursing [7,12,28]. Considering the substantial overlap between intermediate-care patients and less severely ill ICU patients [2], the rate detected in our cohort probably represents a continuum from severely ill to less severe patients. Of economic repercussion, the growing use of EDs, cited as a key contributor to rising health care costs, has become a leading target of health Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical care reform [1]; therefore, the finding in EDIMCU that delirium is a predictor of longer LOS and mortality, and as well a predictor of greater level of dependency, is of particular relevance. Critical care services vary between countries in both numbers of beds and volume of admissions, rendering in some cases distinction between intensive care and intermediate care units difficult [2,31,32]; importantly in the context of this study, is the fact that EDIMCU-type

high-dependency units are much more Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical common in Europe than in the US. The clinical features of high-dependency patients (as those in EDIMCU) are similar, but not identical, to those of less severely ill others ICU monitor patients; therefore, comparisons should be adjusted for characteristics that previously have been shown to influence these outcomes [2]. Results of this cohort of high-dependency patients bounded to the ED require further analysis, particularly in comparison with non-ventilated ICU patients; however, click here routine daily delirium monitoring is already justified [5]. Ultimately, analysis of delirium rates and their outcome in the EDIMCU setting will help in the planning and debate over the roles and capabilities of this type of acute care areas.