Scientific evidence and technocracy as a public policy for the increase in the availability of ICU beds in Brazil: A systematic review

Objective: To identify studies and collect data from the studies that resulted from the analysis of variables that generated quality indicators in intensive care, with the increase in length of stay, care costs and mortality rate, aiming to explain scientific and technocracy criteria as a public policy for patient admission, sedation protocols and infection control as a direct or indirect way, to ensure greater supply of ICU beds. Method: This is a Systematic Literature Review that sought scientific articles, in Portuguese and English, in the Medline, Cochrane, Capes Journal Portal, Latin American and Caribbean Center for Information in Health Sciences - Bireme, Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences - Lilacs and Scientific Electronic Library Online - Scielo. It was set out of the following steps: location of the studies by reading the titles and abstracts, careful reading of the abstracts of the pre-selected articles, selection of articles consistent with the objective of the present study, application of the Jadad scale [1], to evaluate the methodological quality and exclusion of randomized articles with a score of less than three points in it, interpretation and discussion of the results. Results: Eliminated duplicity of the search resulted in 269 scientific articles. The inclusion criteria remained 33 references, of these 10 were evaluated for theoretical basis and 23 that met the above recommendations and evaluations. The data from these studies show a close relationship between the adoption of criteria for patient admission, sedation protocols and infection control. Conclusions: Evidence found in the studies shows that the application of evidence-based medicine in the management of public health policies, especially in intensive care units, can corroborate better quality indicators, with higher bed supply and, consequently shorter waiting time, lower mortality rate and lower costs.