A Clinic Model: Post-Intensive Care Syndrome and Post-Intensive Care Syndrome-Family.

Abstract

The number of patients surviving critical illness in the United States has increased with advancements in medicine. Post-intensive care syndrome and post-intensive care syndrome-family are terms developed by the Society of Critical Care Medicine in order to address the cognitive, psychological, and physical sequelae emerging in patients and their families after discharge from the intensive care unit. In the United Kingdom and Europe, intensive care unit follow-up clinics have been used to address the complications of post-intensive care syndrome for some time. However, the interprofessional clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center is among the first in the United States to address the wide variety of problems experienced by intensive care survivors and to provide patients and their families with care after discharge from the intensive care unit.