Korean J Crit Care Med.  1998 Nov;13(2):212-217.

Number of Beds and Types of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in University and Non-University Hospitals in Korea

• Koh SO
• Park PH
• Kong MH
• Jeung CY
• Lim WM
• Kim YL

Abstract

BACKGOUND: The number of ICU beds related to the number of general acute care beds provides a broad measure of intensive care, but it has obvious limitations and underestimates extreme regional differences. As a first step, we evaluated the number of ICU beds or the ratio of ICU beds to hospital beds in university and non-university hospitals in Korea.
METHODS
The number of ICU beds and hospital beds, the ratio of the number of ICU beds to hospital beds, and the types of ICU in each range of ICU beds and hospital beds in the university and non-university hospital were analyzed as well.
RESULTS
Thirty university hospitals had 1,824 ICU beds out of 25,966 hospital beds, an average of 7.0%. The number of ICU beds ranged from 17 to 159 beds and hospital beds ranged from 400 to 2,000 beds in university hospitals. Fourteen non-university hospitals had 377 ICU beds out of 6,121 hospital beds, an average of 6.2%. In non-university hospitals, the number of ICU beds ranged from 6 to 67 beds with 50 to 700 hospital beds. If there was only one ICU, e.g. multidisciplinary, or more than one, the director of a multidisciplinary and surgical ICU was usually filled by an anesthesiologist, while the directors of other ICUs were usually specialists according to each specific ICU.
CONCLUSIONS
There was a large disparity in the number of ICU beds and in the ratio of ICU beds to hospital beds between university and non-university hosptials, and even between university hospitals.

Keyword

Hospital bed number; Intensive care unit; Bed number; Types

MeSH Terms

Hospitals, University
Intensive Care Units*
Critical Care*
Korea*
Specialization