Critical care is one of the essential services needed by patients who are amongst the sickest in hospital and requires the best care possible. The quality of healthcare has been a major concern for healthcare professionals and development of instruments that enable quality to be measured has been essential in the transformation of this concern into a way of working. It is important that every ICU formulates its indicators of quality as well as its standards to assess performance. Quality indicators are measurements, whose value helps to distinguish between good and bad structural processes and outcome quality. Quality indicators should be based on the best available evidence/be derived from the scientific literature. In 2008, the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine (ISCCM) had taken the initiative, to identify quality indicators for ICUs in India. Quality indicators in ICU are Operational or Process parameters (Length of stay, compliance to protocols, ICU readmission rate etc.); Outcome parameters (Standardised mortality rate, morbidity parameters i.e. Iatrogenic pneumothorax, incidence of severe acute renal failure in non-coronary ICU, decubitus ulcer); Error and Patient Safety (Patients’ fall rate, medication error, adverse events/ error rate, needle stick injury rate, reintubation rate); Infection Control (Ventilator associated pneumonia, surgical site infection, central line associated blood stream infection, urinary catheter related infection); Human Resource (Employee satisfaction) and Customer Focus (Patient experience/ satisfaction).

 

Keywords: Quality of care, Quality in ICU, Quality Indicators, Cost of intensive care