Colombian consensus of criteria for intensive care admission: Task force of the Colombian Association of Critical Medicine and Intensive Care (AMCI®)

It is important to standardize the admission processes to the Intensive Care Units (ICU), and the practices established by consensus determine quality interventions that can enhance specific contexts. ICU are finite, high-cost services that require policies to ensure rational use and to provide quality care to patients. In response to the variability of ICU admission criteria in the country, the Colombian Association of Critical Medicine and Intensive Care (AMCI) convened a multidisciplinary team of experts in critical medicine to establish a scientific statement using the formal consensus methodology, mainly by the Delphi method, about the recommendations and practices that allow to homogenize the criteria for admission to ICU in Colombia. As part of the mission of the AMCI, it is intended to have a positive impact on the different levels of the health system — providers, administrators, insurers and government — and that in the end it will be reflected in benefits for critically ill or at-risk patients. The consensus invites all ICU in the country to select their own criteria taking into account the list of recommendations it contains; it is clarified that the contents are generated in a scientific, academic and non-commercial context. Each health institution must be a guarantor, through the care coordination of the ICUs, of the responsible use of these criteria both for the safe and quality care of patients and to use them for the different commercial relationships established with the administrators of the regimens of health. This document has a national scope and its content is expected to be updated in no more than 4 years.