title: Critically examining intensive care.
abstract: The economic recession of the last decade brought intensive care systems under the light of cost-effectiveness analysis, making use of several instruments available in medical practice, and others adapted from for-profit enterprises. The present concept of intensive care, particularly its functional and organizational interactions with traditional specialties, is at the brink of an important revaluation. Studies of the cost-effectiveness of therapeutic actions may be grossly biased if they do not consider the complete process of care (before, during, and after treatment), analyzing even its smallest elements.
authors.affiliation: University Hospital, Groningen.
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Miranda
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups / Q000191:economics; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000191:economics* / Q000458:organization & administration; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical; D014481:United States