The Importance of Technology for Achieving Superior Outcomes From Intensive Care Units in Brazil

Insuficiência cardíaca grave em unidade de terapia intensiva: existe um índice prognóstico ideal?

“…Any way, even the highest SMR levels were quite below the SMRs found in this group of severe cardiopathy patients, according to the study by Bastos et al 34 , using the APACHE II and SAPS II models.…”

Effects of a major structural change to the intensive care unit on the quality and outcome after intensive care

“…The only report we found of some similarity was from 10 Brazilian ICUs where a greater availability of intensive care equipment and services was significantly associated with a lower SMR. 6 This change in outcome was not apparent to us until we used the VLAD technique to analyse performance. Since the 8 month period of rebuilding took place over two separate years, it was not obvious from the standard yearly reporting that this period was different from the normal performance for our ICU.…”

“…In intensive care, the change from an open to a closed unit-that is, with dedicated doctors in charge of the unit-has an impact on mortality. 1 2 Other factors, such as the number of intensive care nurses, 3 4 workload, 5 and availability of relevant equipment, 6 have also been shown to affect outcome. Data on the impact of temporarily moving an intensive care unit (ICU) from one place to another within the hospital have not been found.…”

Recommendations on basic requirements for intensive care units: structural and organizational aspects

“…The following management functions are accommodated in the patient area [64][65][66]. Central power sources, medical gases, water, and plumbing are described in the section ''Central services.''…”