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Intensive and Critical Care Medicine pp 93–104Cite as

Scoring Systems

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Abstract

Intensivists, the physicians that practice the art and science of intensive care medicine, have a challenging task. Our field of action presents unique characteristics that make it distinct from most fields of medicine: we deal with a quite heterogeneous population, with our patients presenting a wide range of ages, comorbid diseases, reasons for seeking medical care, and specific needs for care. Moreover, the time window for our interventions is measured often in minutes rather than in days or months. For this reason, we traditionally practice our specialty inside special places in the hospital, the so-called Intensive Care Units (ICUs) where all the technical and human expertise are assembled together in order to optimize the science and art of preventing, detecting, and managing patients at risk or with already-established critical illness in order to achieve the best possible outcomes of care. This task is a complex process, carried out on a very heterogeneous patient population, and influenced by several variables that include religious and cultural background, different structures and organizations of the health care systems, and major differences in the baseline characteristics of the populations.

“The power and the beauty of science do not rest upon infallibility, which it has not, but on corrigibility, without which it is nothing” Howard Gruber

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unidade de Cuidados Intensivos Polivalente, Hospital de St. António dos Capuchos, Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa Central E.P.E., Lisbon, Portugal

    R. P. Moreno, A. C. Diogo & S. Afonso

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  1. R. P. Moreno
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  2. A. C. Diogo
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  3. S. Afonso
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department and School of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Catania School of Medicine and University-Hospital, Catania, Italy

    Antonino Gullo

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, Keck Medical School, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Philip D. Lumb

  3. Department of Critical Care Medicine, Hospital Centro Medico de Caracas, Caracas, Venezuela

    José Besso

  4. World Federation of Critical Care Nurses C/-Nursing Administration, Gold Coast Health, Southport, Queensland, Australia

    Ged F. Williams

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Moreno, R.P., Diogo, A.C., Afonso, S. (2009). Scoring Systems. In: Gullo, A., Lumb, P.D., Besso, J., Williams, G.F. (eds) Intensive and Critical Care Medicine. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-1436-7_9

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