National Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Audit
National Office of Clinical Audit
2015 — data collection commenced in first unit.
2019 — roll-out to all acute hospitals expected to be completed.
National Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Audit aims to:
- measure indicators of the quality of care in each ICU and benchmark these against other units in Ireland and the UK through the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) — the UK body for ICU Audit
- measure activity in each unit to aid the planning of critical care services locally and nationally
- provide data on complexity of care provided for each patient with potential to link this to reimbursement in the future
- improve the quality of data for Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) by providing data on procedures and diagnoses arising while the patient is in ICU to link cost to complexity of care
- support Irish and international research to enhance patient care.
National audit with data collection from public hospitals with intensive care units.
ICU Audit is a computer-based system designed to collect demographic, clinical and outcome details on admissions to ICUs in acute hospitals nationally.
Demographic details; admission details; clinical details; comorbidities; diagnostic details; clinical interventions; details of organs supported and level of care delivered, ICU and hospital outcome, details of organ donation, unit-acquired infection and data to support HIPE coding.
Irish public and voluntary hospitals.
There are 22 hospitals in the implementation plan.
Data is collected by ICU Audit nurses in contributing hospital ICUs. Data is downloaded from hospital systems, taken from medical charts or records and entered onto the ICU Audit system.
User definition manual will be available for the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) dataset. Full list of dataset points is available from ICU Audit Coordinator (icu@noca.ie).
ICNARC coding method and definitions used for one aspect of the dataset. www.icnarc.org
Yet to be determined as all sites not rolled out.
Annual reports — once data collection is established.
Annual reports as agreed by ICU Audit Governance Committee and NOCA Governance Board and subsequently issued by NOCA.
No