When the ICU at the University of Florida's Academic Health Center went to round-the-clock staffing with attending intensivists, the number of referrals to hospice and palliative care tripled, reducing medically unnecessary care and possibly costs, UF researchers told a physician conference. Critical care fellow Dr. Eric Papierniak said there wasn't a special effort to increase referrals but the intern pairs who had been staffing the ICU at night may not have felt qualified to make decisions about aggressive treatment.