Improving intensive care unit quality using collaborative networks.

Collaborative networks of intensive care units can help promote a quality-improvement agenda across an entire system or region. Proposed advantages include targeting a greater number of patients, sharing of resources, and common measurement systems for audit and feedback or benchmarking. This review focuses on elements that are essential for the success and sustainability of these collaborative networks, using as examples networks in Michigan and Ontario. More research is needed to understand the mechanisms through which collaborative networks lead to improved care delivery and to demonstrate their cost-effectiveness in comparison with other approaches to system-level quality improvement.