The perioperative care of orthopaedic and trauma patients in a high-dependency unit: a 2-year prospective audit.

There is an increasing trend towards the establishment of high-dependency units in large hospitals since it is thought that they conveniently 'fill the gap' between the intensive care unit and the routine wards. This paper prospectively reviews the results of management of 205 orthopaedic and trauma patients who passed through such a unit over a 2-year period. The unit was shown to provide effective and safe care for a group of particularly high-risk patients for whom care on a routine ward at times would be insufficient and for whom care on an intensive care unit is unnecessarily expensive and occasionally unavailable. The high-dependency unit as described in this paper represents an efficient use of resources for this group of patients.