Undergraduate section
This section of the website is for the use of medical students who are undertaking Student Selected Components with PICU. If you have any suggestions for how the site may b improved, please contact me by e-mail.
SSC 57: Assessing quality of care in paediatric intensive care Aims and objectives How can the public be sure that the quality of care they receive is good?
Can performance of one unit be compared to performance in another unit? Are league table valid? The aim of this module is to explore some of these issues in relation to one specialised service - paediatric intensive care.
Method of study
You are encouraged to reflect on what outcomes are important, what outcomes can be measured, and how risk adjustment tools can be derived to allow inter-unit comparisons. Your reading will direct you towards commonly used risk adjustment tools used internationally, and to focus on the tool used in the United Kingdom, and how the audit network nationally operates.
Assessment
The project will be assessed on the basis of a 2000 word essay.
SSC 58: Transporting critically ill children between hospitals.
Aims and objectives
The centralised nature of paediatric intensive care means that children who are critically ill need to be transferred from the hospitals where they present to the hospital where intensive acre is to be provided. Transferring these patients raises a number of challenges, and specialised teams have eveolved to provide this 'retrieval service'.
Method of study
You are expected to use literature searching skills to discover why this model of PICU has eveloved, and how the local retrieval service operates. I will help support you in finding out how the service operates in other units in the United Kingdom. You are encouraged to talk to members of the retrieval team, and hopefully accompany them on a retrieval.
Assessment
There will be a final written report produced (2000 words), summarising the evolution of PICU as a service nationally, outlining why retrieval teams are integral to the specialty, and describing the strengths and weaknesses of the model used in South Wales. In addition to learning about some of the clinical challenges of critically ill children, this project will outline how the health service is organised, and how new specialties develop.