The provision of ICU outreach and its impact on ICU survivors, families and healthcare professionals

• Main Author: Mohamed Ludin, Salizar
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: RT Nursing
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/38129/6/USM_Conference_2014__ICU_Outreach%281%29_SALIZAR_ML_IREP.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/38129/12/USM_Proceeding_Book_%282%29.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/38129/

Patients who need critical care are among the sickest in a hospital and require a high level of clinical and technical expertise (Department of Health, 2005). There has been a considerable amount of evidence on the effectiveness of the care this patient group receives and much of this resulted in the assertion that critical care should be regarded as a description of a patient’s care needs rather than a place of care (DH, 2000), and a recommendation that Critical and Intensive care outreach services be developed. (Hainsworth, 2006). Research has shown that providing early intervention to patients with deteriorating conditions by critical care health care providers outside the walls of the ICU decreases the incidence death following cardiac arrest, length of hospital stay related to cardiac arrest, post-operative adverse outcomes, post-operative mortality rate, and length of hospital stay (Ball, Kirkby, & William, 2003; Bellomo et al., 2003 DeVita et al., 2004). It was shown that 30 percent the number of documented cardiac arrests after implementation of a critical care team that works outside of ICU (Canadian Healthcare Technology, 2007) decreased. In Malaysia however, introduction of ICU outreach nurse service is rather unclear. From the year of 2007 to 2011, there were increased about 81% of admission and readmission occur within 48 to 72 hours and it was commonly used as an indicator care for patient management that reflect premature ICU discharge or substandard ward by general ward staffs (Tong et.al, 2011). Thus, is the establishment of ICU Outreach services in Malaysia a need?.