Prioritizing and qualifying patients for treatment in anaesthesiology and intensive care units

Priority	Description	Comments
1	The patient will benefit from treatment in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit.	Patients in an imminent life-threatening condition, i.e. critically ill, with a previously known and potentially reversible cause of a life-threatening condition; patients requiring continuous, invasive and advanced monitoring of vital signs, procedures and methods normally available in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit and not available in any other ward (unit) of the hospital [3]; patients requiring permanent presence of anaesthesiology and intensive therapy specialists on the ward as well as nursing staff qualified in intensive care and supervision of intensive care patients. Such admissions and employed human and technological resources are conducive to improving the patient’s prognosis and quality of life.
2	The patient is likely to benefit from treatment in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit.	Patients in an imminent health-threatening condition, unstable, with a diagnosed or suspected but potentially reversible cause of a life-threatening condition; patients requiring procedures and methods available in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit as standard and not available in any other wards (unit) of the hospital [3]; patients requiring continuous, often invasive and advanced monitoring of life functions; patients requiring intensive and qualified nursing care and treatment by specialists in anaesthesiology and intensive care and their continuous supervision. Such interventions are likely to improve the patients’ prognosis and quality of life.
3	It is not known whether the patient will benefit from treatment in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit.	Patients in an imminent health-threatening condition but stable, previously treated in other hospital wards; patients whose condition may potentially deteriorate or become life-threatening and require the use of medical procedures, methods and techniques available as standard only in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit [3]. Medical interventions undertaken in such patients may contribute to improvement of their prognosis or there may not be a positive effect improving prognosis. Such patients constitute a group in which, potentially, the policy of not initiating futile therapy will be applied [4, 5].
4	The patient will NOT benefit from treatment in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit.	Patients who are not in an imminent life-threatening condition, stable, who from a medical and organizational point of view can be treated or monitored in other hospital wards; in whom it is not necessary to implement methods and techniques available as standard in anaesthesiology and intensive care unit; patients requiring only intensive medical care understood as increased supervision and provision of intensive care, i.e. patients who are “too healthy” to benefit from hospitalization in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit. This does not mean that some patients from this group will not meet the criteria for admission to the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit in the future due to a change in their general condition and becoming unstable. Patients with a potentially irreversible cause of a life- or health-threatening condition, in whom implementation of methods and procedures available as standard in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit [3] will not improve their prognosis and will not stop the inevitable progression of a fatal disease and prevent death; such patients who will not benefit from intensive care should be provided with palliative care instead of initiating futile therapy in them [4, 5], i.e. patients who are “too ill” to benefit from hospitalization in the anaesthesiology and intensive care since their negative prognosis will not change. Patients who legally objected to admission and treatment in the anaesthesiology and intensive care unit using life support equipment and methods available only in an anaesthesiology and intensive care unit. Organ donors or potential organ donors are excluded from this group.