IC@N is a troubleshooting survival guide and introductory handbook for healthcare staff new to the exciting world of critical care medicine.
The information provided here focuses upon and succinctly addresses common, important, and urgent clinical problems that may arise without warning in any patient. Many of the topics covered here are practical questions for which the simple and safe solution is not always apparent or accessible from medical texts or obscure hospital policy documents.
IC@N is based on a problem-oriented and practical approach: What should I do now? The information contained in IC@N is deliberately simple, direct, and specific. Some will think it too specific. It assumes a basic level of medical knowledge and clinical experience, plus a degree of common sense. It does not contain detailed or comprehensive treatment guides for specific diagnostic conditions nor definitive long-term treatment, that is available elsewhere from other sources. IC@N is not intended to be exhaustive nor comprehensive text book, rather a guidebook.
The guidelines in IC@N have been developed, trialled, and revised over several years by the medical and nursing staff at Northern Health and Eastern Health (Melbourne, Australia).
Our motto: soins intensifs sans frontieres (critical care without borders). The skills of critical care can be taken outside of the Intensive Care Ward (or ICU/ITU) to other areas of acute health care with the intention of preventing and treating serious illness before it becomes irreversible.