Critically examining intensive care

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.