<unk>  or  critical care medicine is a branch of medicine concerned with the provision of life support or organ support systems in patients who are critically ill and who usually require<unk>  monitoring.
Patients requiring<unk>  care usually require support for hemodynamic instability (hypertension/hypotension), airway or respiratory compromise (such as ventilator support), acute renal failure, potentially lethal cardiac dysrhythmias, and frequently the cumulative affects of multiple organ system failure. Patients admitted to the<unk>  care unit not requiring support for the above are usually admitted for<unk> /invasive monitoring, such as the crucial hours after major surgery when deemed too unstable to transfer to a less<unk> ly monitored unit.
Ideally,<unk>  care is usually only offered to those whose condition is potentially reversible and who have a good chance of surviving with<unk>  care support.  Since the critically ill are so close to dying, the outcome of this intervention is difficult to predict. Many patients, therefore, die in the<unk>  Care Unit. A prime requisite for admission to an<unk>  Care Unit is that the underlying condition can be overcome.  Therefore, treatment is merely meant to win time in which the acute affliction can be resolved.
Medical studies suggest a relation between<unk>  care unit (ICU) volume and quality of care for mechanically ventilated patients. After adjustment for severity of illness, demographic variables, and characteristics of the ICUs (including staffing by<unk> sts), higher ICU volume was significantly associated with lower ICU and hospital mortality rates. For example, adjusted ICU mortality (for a patient at average predicted risk for ICU death) was 21.2% in hospitals with 87 to 150 mechanically ventilated patients annually, and 14.5% in hospitals with 401 to 617 mechanically ventilated patients annually. Hospitals with intermediate numbers of patients had outcomes between these extremes.
It is generally the most expensive, high technology and resource<unk>  area of medical care. In the United States estimates of the 2000 expenditure for critical care medicine ranged from US$15-55 billion accounting for about 0.5% of GDP and about 13% of national health care expenditure (Halpern, 2004).
Intensive care medicine
Emergency medicine
Critical care nursing
Dental anesthesiology
Respiratory therapy
Hospital
Intensive care unit
Coronary care unit