Quality Assessment in the Medical Intensive Care Unit

Quality assessment and assurance activities in the intensive care unit are complex processes that begin with the definition of the scope of services delivered in the unit with further identification of the important aspects of care. There is also a need to establish indicators of quality, gather data, and finally to organize the data into useful information. There are many approaches to these efforts ranging from establishment of indicators to data collection and analysis of patterns that lead to clarification of the indicators. We chose the latter pathway, specifically utilizing a previously described data model in which information was grouped according to structure, process, and outcome of patient care. In this paper, we focus on the application of the concept of patient days of service for quantification of the utilization of resources as an element of quality. Efficient utilization of resources cannot be effected until data on actual utilization are collected and analyzed.