What makes for good critical care?

Consistency and coordination among teams makes for good critical care. In this video, HealthMaker Henry Masur, MD, chief of the National Institutes of Health's critical care medicine department, explains specialist roles on a critical care team.

Transcript

00:00

Many of the interventions, which have appeared to be useful in the past, really prolong or delay your cognitive recovery,

00:07

your physical recovery. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:15

I think in terms of a team I think we realized that to provide 24 hours of care to somebody who really needs life support,

00:23

you really need nurses therapists and physicians, to really be on the same page about what the plan should be.

00:30

You need all the care to be consistent and coordinated. You need good handoffs from one team to another.

00:37

So there is a lot of emphasis on what the team does. And the team is not limited to the therapist, the nurse, and the physician. It includes the social worker.

00:45

It includes an ethicist. And it includes nutritionists and pharmacists, so really a large number of people that are necessary to bridge people who have life-threatening illnesses

00:54

to recovery. I think it's also important to recognize that we're very focused on outcome

01:01

in terms of functioning. In order to function the question is, can you regain your prior state of health

01:08

both physically and mentally? Or how close can you get? And I think we recognize more and more that many of the interventions, which

01:15

have appeared to be useful in the past, really prolong or delay your cognitive recovery,

01:21

your physical recovery. So we're very focused on what does it really improve, the quality and the duration of your survival.