Outcome from intensive care and measuring performance

Care of the critically ill is both time consuming and expensive. Poor quality critical care may harm patients and increase resource utilization, morbidity and mortality. It is widely accepted that simple comparisons of the results of critical care units with differing admission profiles and demographic groups yields limited information. Combining measures of pre-morbid state, severity of illness and resource utilization with clinical, social and psychological outcomes allows more meaningful comparisons. This article discusses measures of outcome and performance in intensive care medicine.