Which indicators used to assess quality performance in Intensive Care Units? A systematic review of medical literature

Abstract Objective Collect, through a literature review, the indicators recommended for the measurement of performance in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and determine their typology. Methods This systematic review was conducted in Medline, using the following search strategy: (“Critical Care”[Mesh] or “Critical Care Nursing”[Mesh] or “Intensive Care Units”[Mesh]) and “Quality Indicators, Health Care”[Mesh] and (hasabstract[text] and “2012/01/01”[PDat]: “2016/12/31”[PDat] AND “humans”[MeSH Terms] and [English(lang) or French(lang)]). Results Overall, a total of 176 articles were selected for inclusion, of which 140 articles were available. The most frequent journal was: “Critical Care Medicine” (12%). Half of the articles have been published in USA. The analysis of these articles allowed the development of a list of 92 performance indicators in the ICU. The majority of quality indicators were global (63%) and used in a polyvalent ICU (86%). Regarding the domain, the indicators were distributed as follows: 19% “input”, 40% “process” and 41% “output”. Conclusion This study proposes a set of close to one hundred most-studied ICU performance indicators related essentially to “process”. This study is only the first step in a performance improvement quality. The next step will be to use these indicators to develop a performance dashboard of the ICU based on clinical expertise.