• Andrew F Shorr.
• Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC 20307, USA. AFSHORR@dnamail.com
• Curr Opin Crit Care. 2002 Aug 1;8(4):337-43.

AbstractCritical care providers are under increasing pressure to be attentive to cost concerns. The ICU consumes a significant amount of resources and, as such, is a frequently identified target of efforts to limit escalating healthcare costs. Attempts to reduce costs need not progress in a haphazard fashion. Rather, they can proceed in a logical, systematic manner with the assistance of formal economic studies. Cost-effectiveness analysis is one tool for these projects-it allows physicians to compare the financial consequences of different approaches to resource allocation. ICU physicians, therefore, must become familiar with the basic concepts that underlie cost-effectiveness analysis. Cost-effectiveness analyses that address many different aspects of critical care delivery are now commonly found in the critical care literature. With a framework for evaluating these studies, clinicians can better apply their findings to their own institutions.

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