History and current status of scoring systems for critical care
D. H. Wisner
Department of Surgery, University of California, Davis 95817.
Scoring systems for quantifying critical illness and predicting outcome are
being used increasingly for resource utilization analysis and quality
assurance purposes. The history of the development of these systems, the
rationale for their use, and the data elements and statistical methods
involved in these systems were reviewed. There are obvious advantages of
scoring systems for the analysis of large groups of patients. At the same
time, there are limitations of such systems in the treatment of individual
patients. While improvement and refinement of existing scoring systems is
likely to occur with time, these limitations must be kept in mind.