Partecipazione alla Task Force European Society of Intensive Care Medicine per la stesura di: Continuous quality improvement in the ICU : general guidelines

Introduction Critically ill or injured patients are almost routinely admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where continuous monitoring and life-support techniques are available and comprehensive treatment, as well as continuous care by trained physicians and nurses, can be provided. The ICU has become an integral part of hospital patient care. It is a complex organisation involving different disciplines, high technology and many diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. ICU costs are high and, despite continuously improving results, there is still a relatively high mortality rate. Patient outcome, not limited to survival but also related to residual disability and quality of life, as well as the effectiveness of treatment and efficiency of intensive care (relating outcome to resource use) have become major issues. The quality of care provided has a significant impact on these variables and continuous improvement of the quality of intensive care is the challenge for the years to come. Quality may be viewed and defined in many different ways. In the following some essential elements of ICU performance will be identified which may be used to develop tools which can help us to improve the quality of ICU practice.