Literature Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 1

Literature Review - Essay Example rsing staff, doctors and others health workers like physiotherapists and respiratory therapists, and providing high-quality care to the sickest patients. Along with these, meeting the needs of the staff members who work in a very stressful environment is also an important challenge. To provide high quality care in ICU, there is a need for interplay of high technology and high acuity in such a setting. Each year, more than 4 million US patients receive critical care and this costs more than $180 billion annually (ECRI Institute, 2007). 10 % of the in-patient beds are occupied by intensive care patients. 30% of acute care hospital costs accounts for intensive care. 8% of the hospital beds are occupied by those who need critical care (Society of Critical Care medicine Survey, 1991 and 1993; qtd in Brilli, Spevetz, & Branson, et al, 2001). Treatment in critical care is extremely expensive. It accounts for 20% of all hospital costs and 1% of the GDP (Luce & Rubenfeld, 2002). The reason why intensive care treatment is highly costly is that ICU is a resource- intense environment which requires skilled staff, costly and new drugs and expensive technology (Kahn & Angus, 2006). Most of the Americans are covered by a health insurance plan either through the companies they work for or through the employment of their spouse or parents. According to the Current Population Survey, 2004 (ASPE, 2005), 59.8% of the population are covered by employers and only 9% purchase insurance directly. Another important source of insurance is Government. Medicare is the largest public coverage program and covers 14% of the population. About 84% of the beneficiaries of Medicare are those above 65 years of age. Another insurance program is the Medicaid which covers 12.9% of the population. The population which is covered by this program constitutes mainly the children, pregnant women, elderly, and disabled people. Military/veterans coverage of insurance is also provided by the Government and