Priorities of SIAARTI for Patient Admission to the Intensive Care Unit

Description

An ad hoc committee for SIAARTI (Gruppo di Studio Ad Hoc Della Commissione di Bioetica Della SIAARTI) listed priorities for selecting which patients should be admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Use of a priority system can optimize use of scarce or expensive resources. The authors are from multiple institutions in Italy.

Patient selection: admission to the ICU

Priority	Patient Status	Additional Information
1 (highest expected benefit)	current critical illness expected to significantly benefit with ICU care	level of care not available outside of the ICU
2	potentially critical illness and/or potential serious complications likely to benefit from closer monitoring or more aggressive management	includes acute exacerbation of a chronic illness
3	critical illness with undefined benefit from ICU care	includes acute exacerbation of an illness with limited life expectancy
4 (lowest expected benefit)	no benefit from ICU care, with potential for harm	includes non-critical illness, terminal stage of an irreversible disease, or refusal by a competent person
Do not admit to ICU	absolutely no possibility of recovering an acceptable quality of life	includes permanent vegetative state

where:

• ICU care includes both aggressive management and intensive monitoring.

• A current critical illness should have failure in one or more organ systems.

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Description

Specialty

ICD-10