Who Should Get the Last PICU Bed?

Abstract

Administrators sometimes face ethical dilemmas about the allocation of institutional resources. One such situation is when elective surgery cases require reserved ICU beds and the ICU is full. Such situations arise frequently in children' s hospitals today. They are sometimes complicated by questions about whether every patient in the ICU belongs there.

Outcomes of paediatric patients ventilated in a high-care area outside an intensive care unit

“…Measures should include clear ICU triage guidelines and admission criteria; effective, practical and equitable use of scarce resources; effective transport systems, both to the hospital and to the ICU; effective use of intensivists and other well-trained health professionals; and use of intermediate facilities such as the HCA for patients with lower critical care needs, with more intensive training of nursing and medical staff in charge of their care. [2,14,20,26,[30][31][32][33][34] Declaration. The research for this study was done in partial fulfilment of the requirements for SKC's MMed (Paed) degree at the University of the Witwatersrand.…”

Cost comparison of mechanically ventilated patients across the age span

“…This debate plays out differently across the age spectrum: for older children and adults, debate takes the form of allocation decisions for limited ICU beds or nursing staffing ratios to more and less critically ill patients. ( 3 – 7 ) For premature neonates, resource allocation and quality of life discussions center around gestational-age-based discretionary resuscitation guidelines. ( 8 – 11 )…”