Number of ICU beds and types of intensive care unit in inuversity and nonuniversity hospital in Korea

Background: The number of ICU beds related to the number of general acute care beds provides a broad measure of intensive caie, 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 (he 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 tfiere was only one ICU, e.g. multidisciplinaiy, 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.ope