Hello, my name is Jean-Louis Vincent.
I am a professor of Intensive Care Medicine at the University of Brussels, Belgium.
I have been a full-time intensivist for many years.
Initially trained in the US
I was a president of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine.
And also I am the immediate past president of the World Federation
of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine.
And it's my pleasure to moderate this very interesting session,
which is an introduction to the ICU.
Very important to start with an introduction,
and we'll have three excellent talks.
The first one will focus on the general aspects of the ICU
architecture, blows rooms, organization aspects,
how to improve all this in a crisis like of course, pandemics.
The second talk will deal with the ICU care principles.
We will insist on the multidisciplinary care teams.
With the roles and tasks of every member of the team,
it'll be very important to recognize them, to individualize them.
We will also discuss the closed and open ICU concepts very important.
And again, make recommendations for a crisis,
how to address the bottlenecks and redistribute the tasks
when there is a critical shortage of ICU nurses and doctors.
And then the third talk will be on the ICU care pathway,
the short and long term planning.
What about the daily routine at the bedside in the ICU?
How to make plans for the day,for the following days
and the following hours as usually
things can change quite a bit over a 24 hour period,
but you know, we have to discuss the long-term planning,
the therapeutic limitations maybe, and the ICU outcomes.
And how to improve functional outcomes.
So for the first talk,
we have a good friend and a real expert
of one Antoine Vieillard-Baron France.