[Development and construction mode of critical care medicine: 22 years of development and construction of intensive care units of Guizhou Medical University].

OBJECTIVE: To provide decision-making basis for promoting the rapid and healthy development of critical care medicine/intensive care unit (ICU) through discussing the mode of development and construction of the department of ICU.

METHODS: The situations of ICU of Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University from July 1994 to December 2016 were analyzed and summed up. Data of the situations in different development stages included the location and area of the ward, the number of beds, the number of physicians and nurses, the structure of academic titles and educational levels, the number of patients admitted to ICU per year, the proportion of patients used ventilator per year, the mortality, the mode of the discipline management, the number of medical postgraduates and undergraduates trained in the ICU, the number of teaching hours, the achievements, the number of research projects, the number of published monographs and papers, the number of the multicenter trials that we participated in, the construction of the team, the personal honor, and so on.

RESULTS: From 1994 to 2016, the department of ICU had three development stages: the initial development stage of the discipline (from July 1994 to March 2005), the standardization development stage of the discipline (from April 2005 to December 2015), the acceleration development stage of the discipline (from December 2015 to December 2016). The scale of the department expanded from an open unit with 6 beds which was shared with the department of cardiothoracic surgery to 6 enclosed units with 90 beds which were managed independently by the intensivists. The area of the department increased from less than 300 m(2) to more than 7 000 m(2). There were 46 beds in the mixed ICU, which covered an area of 4 210 m(2). There was only one physician in 1994 while the number of the physicians increased to 19 in 2016. The number of nurses increased from 4 in 1994 to 69 in 2016. The proportion of highly educated talents significantly increased. Furthermore, from 1994 to 2016, the number of beds increased from 6 to 46; the number of patients admitted to ICU per year increased from 138 to 1 080; and the number of patients used ventilator increased from 24 to 1 057. The mean acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II (APACHE II) score was > 24.0 at admission, while < 12.6 at discharge. From 1997 to 2016, a total of 79 postgraduates had studied in the department, and 390 teaching hours we had undertaken. From 2011 to 2016, a total of 250 undergraduates had studied in the department, and 540 teaching hours we had undertaken. From 1994 to 2016, 8 achievements were obtained, 22 projects were undertook, 4 monographs were published, 6 books were edited that the physicians in the ICU as key editors, 104 papers were published, and 8 national multicenter trials that the physicians in the ICU were as key participants, and multiple team and individual honors were obtained.

CONCLUSIONS: The construction of ICU hardware is the basis and prerequisite for the development of the discipline and the construction of ICU software is the soul and motivation of the discipline. The operation indexes of clinical medical treatment, teaching and scientific researches reflect the overall operation status of the discipline and the hospital.