The critical care guidelines discussed here were found on the website of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM, 2005, http://www.sccm.org/). They were found by going to the search engine Google and typing in "Guidelines for critical care." The guidelines were developed for the care of patients needing critical care. The guidelines were published in Critical Care Medicine between 2001 and 2004 (http://www.sccm.org/press_room/press_releases/Guidelines.asp). The guidelines were developed to set standards of critical care for admission and discharge, for triage of critical care patients, for defining clinical roles and the best practice model, for critical care services and personnel, and for critical care of pediatric patients.
The first Consensus Conference on Critical Care Medicine, which was led by the National Institutes of Health in 1983, indicated that clinical practice had expanded the need for admission to critical care units, and most physicians felt that the benefits of ICU care were unmeasured. Care in an ICU entails the use of expensive resources, and as such, it was determined that it should be used for patients who "have a reasonable prospect of substantial recovery." Recent changes in the health car environment have made efficient use of the ICU a priority, yet few studies have been carried out to examine the indications for the outcome of ICU care. The few studies that have been carried out suggest that there is little difference in some cases between the care of patients in the ICU and those cared for outside the ICU for the same complaints.
The guidelines for ICU admission, discharge, and triage were issued in 1999 and represent a compilation and revision of the previously published guidelines (Guidelines, 1999,633-638). It was suggest that individuals using these guidelines should create policies specific for their units, that criteria for admission and discharge should be explicitly described,...