Assessing Critical Care Delivery Using National-Level ICU Registry Data

Area of Science:

• Critical Care Medicine
• Health Informatics
• Public Health

Background:

• The United States lacks a comprehensive national database for critical care.
• Existing national intensive care unit (ICU) registries vary globally.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a scoping review of established national ICU databases.
• To describe international patterns in critical care delivery and data collection.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search of MEDLINE, Embase, and Web of Science.
• Inclusion of projects describing national critical care delivery in any language.
• Extraction of database characteristics: ICU type, establishment year, data entry, and variables.

Main Results:

• 185 manuscripts were included, identifying 30 countries with national ICU registries.
• Registries capture diverse data: demographics, vital signs, comorbidities, diagnoses, treatments, severity scores, and outcomes.
• Data entry often combines automated abstraction and manual entry with validation.

Conclusions:

• Mature national ICU registries offer valuable insights for developing a U.S. program.
• Such a program could facilitate benchmarking, needs assessment, quality improvement, and research.
• International experiences can guide the establishment of a unified U.S. critical care database.