ICU

ICU:Intensive Care Unit:
Intensive care by its very nature is complex, requiring round-the-clock monitoring, diagnostic and therapeutic interventions and decision-making for individual patients. Additionally, it requires administration of the unit as a whole. This involves organizing a multi-professional staff, sterility and infection control, training of personnel and quality control. The level of sophistication of critical care in terms of technology, conceptual framework and application has grown rapidly in the last two decades. In critical illness, because of the broad range of acute illnesses and interplay of different organ dysfunctions and pre-existing conditions, a comprehensive approach to all organ systems is required.

The intensivist as opposed to the single organ specialist is therefore better equipped to provide leadership in the management of the critically-ill patient. Since so much is at stake while caring for critically ill, the task demands an integrated approach that combines the services of physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and other ancillary staff. Organizational features relating to medical and nursing leadership, communication and collaboration among providers, and approaches to problem-solving may capture the quality of ICU care more comprehensively than do practices related to specific processes of care.
The bulk of earning of corporate hospitals is from ICU.No one is prepared to accept the death of a near and dear ones, even if the person was more than 80 years old with multiple system diseases.The morgues are also having a good earning by keeping the dead body, till the near ones fly back to India.There is no fixed criteria for keeping a patient in ICU, it differs from government run to private hospitals. It has been observed that referral ,insured patients and children staying abroad relatives patients have a longer stay in ICU. Young patients get benefits from ICU.Patients suffering from cerebral malaria, snake bite, meningitis, trauma,post surgical, cardiac patients and respiratory failure get the best result.Some cases of brain death patients are unnecessarily kept in ICU and the aggrieved party pay the bill.Patients and their relatives must realize that money can not save all the seriously ill patients, other wise no film stars or business people would have died prematurely.Terminally ill patients coming all the way from Baripada or Balangir should be discouraged from spending money on ICU care.The writer of this article has experience of ICU care in different hospitals--the unpalatable truth is, few patients are kept alive through different gadgets and medicines just to prolong the patient's stay and earn some revenue.