Publications

Our publications keep professionals working across the public, private, and academic sectors informed on the most important developments and issues in health security and biosecurity.

Find an article or report by keywords:

Find an article or report or see all by area, author, or year:

Title:

Critical Care during Epidemics

Authors:

Lewis Rubinson, Tara O'Toole

Date posted:

August 09, 2005

Publication type:

Article

Publication:

Crit Care 2005;(4):311-313

Publisher:

Society of Critical Care Medicine

Availability:

Available on publisher's website

See also:

Full article as PDF

Introduction:

We recommend several actions that could improve hospitals' abilities to deliver critical care during epidemics involving large numbers of victims. In the absence of careful pre-event planning, demand for critical care services may quickly exceed available intensive care unit (ICU) staff, beds and equipment, leaving the bulk of the infected populace without benefit of potentially lifesaving critical care. The toll of death may be inversely proportional to the ability to augment critical care capacity, so critical care health care professionals must take the lead for planning and preparing to care for numbers of seriously ill patients that far exceed available ICU beds.

Full article as PDF