Effects of Appointing a Full-Time Neurointensivist to Run a Closed-Type Neurological Intensive Care Unit

To investigate whether appointing a full-time neurointensivist to manage a closed-type neurological intensive care unit (NRICU) improves the quality of critical care and patient outcomes. This study included patients admitted to the NRICU at a university hospital in Seoul, Korea. Two time periods were defined according to the presence of a neurointensivist in the preexisting open-type NRICU: the before and after periods. Hospital medical records were queried and compared between these two time periods, as were the biannual satisfaction survey results for the families of patients. Of the 15,210 patients in the neurology department, 2,199 were admitted to the NRICU ( =995 and 1,204 during the before and after periods, respectively;