ICNARC's Case Mix Programme

ICNARC's aim is to foster improvements in the organisation and practice of critical care (intensive and high dependency care) in the UK.

ICNARC works towards this aim by:

• promoting local audit of critical care through the provision of comparative data (the Case Mix Programme);
• developing a broad programme of research of relevance to those commissioning, managing, practising and receiving critical care ;
• improving the quality of audit and research in critical care;
• promoting the use of evidence in critical care practice and policy;
• building research capacity in critical care.

ICNARC is concerned with both audit and research into critical care. Its main national audit of patient outcomes from critical care, the Case Mix Programme, operates as follows:

• critical care units volunteer to join and collect case mix, patient outcome and activity data, according to the standardised Case Mix Programme dataset, on all the patients they admit to their unit;
• these data are submitted to ICNARC;
• ICNARC validates and analyses these data;
• ICNARC compares the data from these patients with that of outcomes from other similar patients, other similar units and all the units in the Case Mix Programme. It also shows trends over time;
• these analyses form the electronic Data Analysis Report which covers a quarterly period of data;
• the electronic Data Analysis Reports shows how the unit compares with others and helps the unit understand more about the care they deliver. It aims to assist them in decision-making, resource allocation and local performance management.

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