Review Article

An Integrative Literature Review of Organisational Factors Associated with Admission and Discharge Delays in Critical Care

Table 3

Organisational factors contributing to ICU admission and discharge delays.

Contributing factorAdmissionDischarge

Information management and teamwork
 Conflicting goals[24]
 Teamwork issues [24]
 Communication breakdowns[2426]
 Lack of shared situational awareness[2426]
Lack of resources
 Busy workload (unit/hospital)[28][24, 29, 32]
 Lack of an available bed[28][24, 29, 32, 33]
 Specific bed placement requirements due to, for example, infection precautions[29, 32]
 Lack of adequate staff [28][29, 32, 33]
 Receiving unit not ready for transfer[28][24]
 Time of discharge (night and weekend transfers)[29, 32, 33]