Basics of cardiovascular hemodynamic monitoring

The usefulness of invasive hemodynamic monitoring is being continuously demonstrated and plays a major role in the advances in critical care medicine. Minute-to-minute monitoring generates continuous information to which the clinician must respond, often with potent pharmacologic agents requiring further monitoring and continued reevaluation. By understanding the concepts of hemodynamic monitoring, the clinical pharmacist in the critical care environment can play an important role in the selection and use of these agents. Further discussions on the usefulness of various pharmacologic agents used in critical care medicine may be found in future issues of this column.