Patient Safety

For more than 30 years, the Society of Critical Care Medicine has promoted the multiprofessional team approach for improved ICU care that consists of dedicated physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, dieticians, social workers, and other ICU professionals.  This ideal critical care model has a consistent and well-documented record of improving patient outcomes by decreasing complications, decreasing inappropriate admissions, reducing adverse drug events, medication errors, and decreasing the length of stay for critically ill.  All of these measures also improve efficiency allowing more patients to receive intensive care.

This Web page was developed as a patient safety resource for everyone in the critical care profession; here you can find safety tips, articles regarding information on the team model, and success stories of how others have been able to improve patient safety in their organizations. 

The Society of Critical Care Medicine envisions a world in which all critically ill and injured persons receive care from integrated teams of dedicated experts directed by trained and present intensivist physicians.

Multi-professional teams use knowledge, technology, and compassion to provide timely, safe, effective and efficient patient-centered care.  (SCCM Mission Statement – 2007 SCCM Strategic Plan)