SIR and the National Board of Health and Welfare have noted that the daily location and occupancy registration that takes place (since 2020-03-30) is applied differently between regions for those patients who are so long at ICU that they can be infectious. SIR has also made recommendations early in the pandemic that can no longer be considered optimal.
SIR and the National Board of Health and Welfare have agreed after deliberation:
- A patient admitted to ICU who is found to have an ongoing covid-19 infection should be reported as a covid patient in SIR's daily site registration. (Not changed)
- Patients admitted to ICU due to covid-19 should continue to be reported as covid patients regardless of formal infectivity as long as the patient is treated unbroken in one or more ICU in one or more regions. (Change against earlier notification to some IVA early in the pandemic process!)
- Patients who are reenrolled in ICU after previous ICU care and who after some time outside ICU recur and who, incidentally, cannot be classified as infectious should NOT be reported as covid-19 patients. (Previously not clarified)
In concrete terms, it is the care consumption perspective that is prioritized and also when moving, etc. as long as the level of care is ICU, the patient retains the classification as covid-19 patient - without covid-19 the infection, the patient would not have been to ICU! Care sessions with readmission due to complications are classified after the complication and not the basic condition, just as usual.
The information above is now spread within the National Board of Health and Welfare, to SKR and the Swedish Public Health Agency and mailings have been made to SIR's ICU contacts. It is our estimate that about half of Sweden's regions already do according to the above and half have stopped reporting "infection-free" covid patients under the heading covid. In concrete terms, this means that within the reported total ICU load there are a number of cases that will now be reclassified from "non-covid" to "covid". The goal is that the adjustment in reporting takes place immediately, but due to holidays and difficulties with information dissemination, it can certainly take the week out before it has made its breakthrough.