Observations in the CVICU

No one has actually taught me this, and I'm not even sure it's true, but anecdote sometimes drives medicine. To me, it seems that after cardiac surgery, patients either fly through recovery or they linger with complication after complication; there isn't a middle ground. I almost want to do a study on the length of stay in the CVICU; I'd guess there'd be a bimodal distribution with a bunch of patients leaving 2 to 3 days after surgery and a bunch leaving around 2 weeks. I'm not sure why this, but I have a few guesses. Perhaps run-of-the-mill surgeries - a routine CABG or valve replacement - represent the quick, reliable in-and-out ICU stays and the emergent cases, complex referrals, and high-risk surgeries buy a longer stay. Or perhaps patients receiving cardiac surgery have such little reserve that any complication will set their course back by weeks. In any case, this seems to be the type of observation that an administrator might want to know because the long-term players tie up critical care beds and cost the hospital and the health care system a lot of money.