Physician Work Load:the Crystal Ball Icu Admit/discharge Criteria: the Tea Leaves Care Models: the Magic 8 Ball Critical Care 2012 President's Message Contents

In health care today, it is hard to predict next week, much less try to predict a few years into the future. Health care may have once been a stable environment with short intervals of significant change, but clearly we have moved into an era of constant change with infinitesimally short periods of stability. Global change for health care is coming, and critical care will surely be a focus of that change, given the costs associated with what we do. Strategic planning requires us to look to the future. Predicting the future requires hubris. I admit that to prognosticate I needed help. Thus, I just returned from a walk through the Northwest Market, a typical Baltimore street market, where I picked up a crystal ball, some tea leaves and a magic 8 ball. Using these has been challenging, but there simply wasn’t a Cochrane review nor was there any significant published evidence of any type. Thus I have utilized what seem like the best tools available and offer you these thoughts.