Humanizing Intensive Care: Toward a Human-Centered Care ICU Model

Humanizing Intensive Care: Toward a Human-Centered Care ICU Model

by Nin Vaeza, Nicolas; Martin Delgado, María Cruz; Heras La Calle, Gabriel 

Critical Care Medicine: March 2020 - Volume 48 - Issue 3 - p 385-390

“If you could choose, how would you like the Intensive Care Units (ICUs) to be?” The Humanization of Intensive Care movement (Proyecto HU-CI) arose after we asked this simple question in our blog, receiving suggestions from more 10,000 people (1). Created in Spain on February 2014, the Humanization of Intensive Care movement is an international research project that seeks, using evidence-based medicine, to answer that same question, thus creating a paradigm shift in the way we deliver our care toward a more friendly and human-centered model (2). Although many may be surprised and feel a contradiction toward this humanistic model, is an essential skill in health professionals that should have never been lost. When professionals are face with the reality of being patients or a family member of critically ill patient, it is then, when they appreciate how it works. “Yet many professionals cite lack of humanistic care as a cause for burnout, an epidemic among health professions today” (3).

Displaying kindness and concern for all the individuals that are part of the healthcare environment, not only patients and its families, is a necessity and the path toward building an excellent healthcare system. We will not be able to cure all people, but surely, we can improve the care we provide by focusing on the dignity of people…