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Prognostic Scoring Systems: Facing Difficult Decisions with Objective Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Kent Sasse
Kent Sasse
Affiliation:
University of California, San Francisco
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Extract

In the United States, at least 6% of all hospital beds are in the intensive care unit (ICU) or coronary care unit. The cost of treating a patient in an intensive care unit averages from $2,000 to $3,500 per day. At least 10–40% of intensive care patients will not survive to hospital discharge. Today, every major category of disease may be found in the modern ICU; common diagnoses are septicemia, postsurgical complications, cerebrovascular accidents, gastrointestinal bleeding, neoplasia, and respiratory failure. ICUs employ some of the most sophisticated medical technology, routinely monitoring the cardiopulmonary performance of patients and often providing assisted ventilation. ICUs are high intensity in terms of their staffing, involving 24-hour physician supervision and nurse:patient ratios from 1:3 to 1:1.

Type
Special Section: Medical Futility: Demands, Duties, and Dilemmas
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , Spring 1993 , pp. 185 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

Notes

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