Rationing intensive care

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Abstract
Forty years later the case mix in intensive care has changed substantially, although the challenges identified in Lassen's report have not. For example, none of the new and very expensive treatments for sepsis has impressively affected survival. The mortality from multiple organ failure remains high.2 The financial (and emotional) costs of care are also high: it costs twice as much to die in intensive care as it does to survive,3 and in a recent British study the 15% of 3600 patients who died after admission to the intensive care unit consumed 38% of the unit's budget.4 …