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Dear SIZ-members,

 

At the onset of my mandate as president of your society, I would like to thank you for your trust and support. Together with the members of the board I hope to maintain and expand the  activities of our society.

 

One of the issues that we would like to address in the coming year is the visibility of critical care in the general population. While most other disciplines are reducing in-hospital beds, ICU beds and use of ICU resources are still expanding.  Critical illness is usually an acute event, and for the patients and their families a stay in the ICU can be a very distressing experience associated with extremes of hope, fear and anxiety. Unfortunately, the knowledge in the general population about the role of the ICU team and the possibilities of the ICU care is poor - often leading to overly optimistic or pessimistic expectations. It would be convenient to inform a broader public about the acute management in the ICU but also about long-term perspectives. We intend to contact national tv-journalists in the hope of finding a formula to increase the visibility and understanding of the ICU in the general population. In a first step we will hold a press conference for the World Sepsis day on September 13 th, 2013.

 

A second issue that we would like to start working on is perspectives regarding telemedicine and monitoring systems of the future. Similar to the end of life meeting in 2012, we will try to organize a smaller Belgian meeting to obtain input and discuss different aspects. The final goal is to produce a working paper aimed at intensivists, hospital boards and health authorities. 

 

The feedback of our last annual meeting in June 2013 was very positive. We will do our best to put together again an attractive program for next year.

 

In the meantime I hope that all of you had excellent summer holidays, and I wish you a good start into the fall.

 

Warm regards

 

Alexander Wilmer

SIZ President