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World J Crit Care Med. Feb 4, 2015; 4(1): 55-61
Published online Feb 4, 2015. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v4.i1.55
Checklist for early recognition and treatment of acute illness: International collaboration to improve critical care practice
Marija Vukoja, Rahul Kashyap, Srdjan Gavrilovic, Yue Dong, Oguz Kilickaya, Ognjen Gajic
Marija Vukoja, Srdjan Gavrilovic, The Institute for Pulmonary Diseases of Vojvodina Sremska Kamenica, Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad, Sremska Kamenica 21204, Serbia
Rahul Kashyap, Yue Dong, Ognjen Gajic, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, United States
Oguz Kilickaya, Gulhane Military Medical Faculty, 6400 Ankara, Turkey
Author contributions: All listed authors contributed to the design, conception and writing of this paper; the CERTAIN investigators contributed to the development and implementation of CERTAIN in various ICU settings.
Conflict-of-interest: This research has been reviewed by the Mayo Clinic Conflict of Interest Review Board and is being conducted in compliance with Mayo Clinic conflict of interest policies. Mayo Clinic and Dr Gajic hold intellectual property rights and financial conflict of interest in critical care related software tools.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Marija Vukoja, MD, PhD, The Institute for Pulmonary Diseases of Vojvodina Sremska Kamenica, Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad, Put doktora Goldmana 4, 21204 Sremska Kamenica, Serbia. kojicic.marija@gmail.com
Telephone: +381-21-4805202 Fax: +381-21-527960
Received: August 23, 2014
Peer-review started: August 24, 2014
First decision: November 27, 2014
Revised: December 19, 2014
Accepted: January 18, 2015
Article in press: January 20, 2015
Published online: February 4, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Important barriers including limited access to educational resources, geographical distance, cost and lack of efficient global infrastructure greatly limit the feasibility of on site educational interventions. To overcome these barriers the international group of intensive care unit (ICU) physicians and researchers developed a simple decision support tool: Checklist for Early Recognition and Treatment of Acute Illness (CERTAIN). CERTAIN is a systematic approach to error prevention with the use of checklists and electronic decision support algorithms. The effectiveness of CERTAIN to improve outcomes and reduce costs will be tested in a stepped wedge cluster before-after trial in ICUs with variable resources across five continents.