Introduction Hospitalization in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) can have negative bio-psychological effects for the patients but also for their families; There is paucity in literature, though, regarding the psychological support of underage family members, having limited access to the ICU. Mobile health (mHealth) applications have been extensively used in health care services, however, there is ...

The majority of intensive care practitioners, until comparatively recently, was content to discharge surviving patients to the care of referring primary specialty colleagues who would undertake subsequent inpatient and outpatient care. With the exception of mortality statistics from clinical studies, the practitioners were thus denied the opportunity of understanding the full impact of critical...

OBJECTIVES To explore staff perceptions of the impact of 'modernization' on the organization, delivery and culture of adult critical care services in England. 'Modernization' policies aimed to alter the boundaries around critical care and create a comprehensive, seamless service. METHODS Seven hospitals (three teaching and four district general hospitals) in three critical care networks parti...

T Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is one of the largest Middle Eastern countries with a landmass of 2.5 million square kilometers, and has transformed over 50 years to the most urbanized country in the region. With an estimated population of almost 30 million residents with an annual growth rate of 2.7%,1 the Saudi Arabian healthcare sector caters to a rapidly growing population and the concurre...

An evaluation of critical care outreach services was published in the previous issue of Critical Care that fails to demonstrate any important outcome benefit associated with these services. It is now time to ask some difficult questions about the future of outreach, including whether the lack of evidence should lead to disinvestment in such services.

OBJECTIVE Critical care represents a large percentage of healthcare spending in developed countries. Yet, little is known regarding international variation in critical care services. We sought to understand differences in critical care delivery by comparing data on the distribution of services in eight countries. DESIGN Retrospective review of existing national administrative data. We identif...

PURPOSE Clinical pharmacist (CP) interventions from the PROTECTED-UK cohort, a multi-site critical care interventions study, were further analysed to assess effects of: time on critical care, number of interventions, CP expertise and days of week, on impact of intervention and ultimately contribution to patient care. METHODS Intervention data were collected from 21 adult critical care units o...

introduction: supplementary health care services are provided to offer health care services beyond existing medical services at a reasonable cost to all members. these supplementary health care services contribute to the health and quality of life of the members and therefore membership provides peace of mind and a sense of security. this study aimed at investigating supplementary health care s...