Articles: intensive-care-units.
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Zhonghua Jie He He Hu Xi Za Zhi · Sep 1998
[Incidence, risk and prognostic factors of pneumonia acquired at intensive care units].
To estimate the incidence of pneumonia acquired in the intensive care unit, and to define risk factors for developing such an event. ⋯ The risk factors for HAP were different among different ICU, which may be related to the difference of patients with an ultimately or a rapidly fatal underlying illness admitted to these units.
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Comparative Study
Predicting survival, length of stay, and cost in the surgical intensive care unit: APACHE II versus ICISS.
Risk stratification of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) is an important tool because it permits comparison of patient populations for research and quality control. Unfortunately, currently available scoring systems were developed primarily in medical ICUs and have only mediocre performance in surgical ICUs. Moreover, they are very expensive to purchase and use. We conceived a simple risk-stratification tool for the surgical ICU that uses readily available International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, codes to predict outcome. Called ICISS (International Classification of Disease Illness Severity Score), our score is the product of the survival risk ratios (obtained from an independent data set) for all International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, diagnosis codes. ⋯ Because ICISS is both more accurate and much less expensive to calculate than APACHE II score, ICISS should replace APACHE II score as the standard risk stratification tool in surgical ICUs.
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Critical care medicine · Aug 1998
Multicenter Study Comparative StudyPediatric risk of mortality: an assessment of its performance in a sample of 26 Italian intensive care units.
To assess the validity of the Pediatric Risk of Mortality (PRISM) scoring system in accurately predicting the probability of mortality in an Italian intensive care unit (ICU) sample. ⋯ The analyses suggest that the unsatisfactory calibration of PRISM can be attributed to various reasons. Among those reasons, a poor performance of the system, as well as its sensitivity to factors not connected to clinical ICU performance, seem particularly important. A special caution is needed in adopting a severity of illness scoring system to assess quality of care, particularly in contexts different from the one in which the instrument was originally developed.
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Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol · Aug 1998
Critical-care-unit bedside design and furnishing: impact on nosocomial infections.
Hospitals in the process of building or renovating intensive-care units (ICUs) often establish multidisciplinary design teams. However, these teams rarely include infection control professionals. ⋯ Infection control professionals are familiar with the relevant research, as well as the regulations and guidelines related to ICU design and infection control practices. Not only is their input essential to the design and construction of safe and effective units but their presence on the design team can allow the prospective collection of comparative data to turn the building project into a research project.