Quality indicators compliance survey in Indian intensive care units

IntroductIonQuality management is crucial in Intensive Care Units (ICUs), and quality indicators are used as tools to monitor performance improvement.ICU outcomes vary widely among hospitals and are likely to be related to differences in ICU design and care pathways.Understanding of these factors may reduce variation and will lead to improving patient care.The objectives of our survey were to study whether optimum quality standards are implemented in Indian ICUs according to local resource availability and to locate areas of noncompliance. MethodsThe survey was conducted through a questionnaire, which was designed to gather information from responders.The survey forms were distributed at one of the Annual National Congresses of the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine and were also e-mailed to randomly selected members of the same organization.The questionnaire elicited responses regarding their ICU's professional status, details of their hospitals and ICUs setup, compliance of quality indicators such as infection control measures, patient safety, and outcome parameters.The 400 completely filled forms were analyzed, and percentages were calculated for each response.The questionnaire was categorized into three sections, which included questions regarding demographics details, human resource-related parameters, and quality indicator compliance.These parameters have been selected from recommendations by studies pertaining to quality assessment of ICUs. results Demographic resultsMaximum responders in the survey were male intensivists (70%) in the age group of 30-40 years [Figure 1].A majority of responders belong to the subspecialties of anesthesia (28%) followed by intensivists (27%) [Figure 2].Maximum Context: The quality of health care and outcomes of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) have been a major subject of discussion in the past decade.Quality indicators in ICUs maintain an order of uniformity and standard care of delivery across ICUs.Aims: In this study, we tried to analyze the percentage compliance of quality indicators in ICU across our country.Methods: Four hundred complete questionnaire forms were collected in two stages by means of conducting a survey and through email responses to the survey questionnaire.Data were tabulated and evaluated in percentage responses.Results: Monitoring of infection control measures such as hand hygiene (77%), monitoring of ICU-acquired infections (>75%), and quality and policy measures (>70%) were promising.Improvements are required in following end-of-life pathways (52%) and staffing patterns in ICU.ICU discharge timings (41%), standardized mortality ratio monitoring (39%), and multidisciplinary rounds (58%) in ICUs are few areas we need to develop further.Conclusion: The future of critical care looks promising with growing number of trained intensivists and hospitals functioning with an average ICU bed strength of 30-40.Such surveys need to be performed regularly to improve the patient care and safety across ICUs.