Accreditation Canada's sector and service-based standards help organizations assess quality at the point of service delivery. They are based upon five key elements1 of service excellence: clinical leadership, people, process, information, and performance.
Critical care is specialized interdisciplinary care provided to clients with life threatening or potentially life threatening conditions, typically involving one or more organ system failures. This type of care is provided on a 24-hour basis in a variety of settings including on a hospital ward, or in a post-anaesthetic recovery unit (PACU), intensive care unit (ICU), coronary care unit or other high dependency unit. Critical care also includes care provided by outreach teams, known as rapid response or medical emergency teams. These teams typically conduct interventions on the ward in an attempt to halt deterioration of the client’s condition and possibly prevent the need for admission to the intensive care unit.
These standards contain the following subsections:
Investing in critical care services
Engaging prepared and proactive staff
Providing safe and appropriate services
Maintaining accessible and efficient clinical information systems
Monitoring quality and achieving positive outcomes
For this standard section, an “Open ICU” refers to one in which patients are admitted and decisions are made by an attending physician of record (such as a general internist, surgeon, or family practitioner) with intensivists available for consultation. A “Closed ICU” refers to one in which admitted patients are transferred to the care of an intensivist assigned to the ICU on a full-time basis and patients are admitted to the ICU only after the intensivist approves their admission.
1 Nelson et al, “Microsystems in Healthcare: Part 1: Learning from High-Performing Front-Line Clinical Units,” Joint Commission Journal on Quality Improvement. September (2002): 472-493.