Critical Care

The critical care department hub — twelve multi-society clinical guideline series covering sepsis (including SSC 2026 adult and pediatric), mechanical ventilation and ARDS, VAP, CLABSI prevention, PADIS, nutrition, VTE prophylaxis, transfusion, AKI/RRT, and post-arrest care, each broken into linked part pages.

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Last revised: March 2026
Editorial responsibility: The Clinical Database

Critical care (intensive care) is the specialty of managing patients with acute, life-threatening organ dysfunction — patients who need continuous monitoring, titrated hemodynamic and respiratory support, and coordinated prevention of the complications that intensive treatment itself creates. This section of The Clinical Database is the ICU hub: twelve evidence-based clinical guideline series spanning resuscitation, ventilation, sedation, infection prevention, nutrition, hemostasis, renal support, and post-arrest care.

Each series is a multi-society synthesis: recommendations from several authoritative sources — the SCCM/ESICM Surviving Sepsis Campaign, the Sepsis-3 consensus definitions, CDC and SHEA/IDSA infection prevention guidance, and others — are integrated into a single, copyright-free reference with full DOI-linked citations, then split into sequential part pages so each part is individually citable. Two of the series are dedicated single-source references to the Surviving Sepsis Campaign 2026 guidelines, indexed recommendation by recommendation. Every page carries a published date and a lastmod date; prefer lastmod when citing.

For how the series are constructed and maintained, see the ICU Clinical Guidelines hub.

Guideline Series

Resuscitation & Hemodynamics

Series	Covers	Parts
Sepsis and Septic Shock	Sepsis-3 definitions, screening, hour-1 bundle, vasopressors, antimicrobials, source control, organ support, outcomes	1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5
Surviving Sepsis Campaign 2026 — Adult	The SCCM/ESICM 2026 guidelines: 129 recommendations across screening, infection, hemodynamics, respiratory support, adjunctive therapies, and goals of care	1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6
Surviving Sepsis Campaign 2026 — Children	The SCCM/ESICM 2026 pediatric guidelines: 61 recommendations from recognition and antimicrobials through ECMO and long-term follow-up	1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5
Post-Cardiac Arrest Care & TTM	Post-ROSC management, targeted temperature management, neuroprognostication, seizures, organ donation, recovery	1 · 2 · 3 · 4

Respiratory

Series	Covers	Parts
Mechanical Ventilation & ARDS	ARDS definition, lung-protective ventilation, prone positioning, NMBA, rescue therapies, liberation, quality metrics	1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5
Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia	VAP/VAE definitions, prevention bundles, diagnosis, MDR-stratified treatment, pathogen-specific therapy, surveillance	1 · 2 · 3 · 4

Neurocritical Care & Sedation

Series	Covers	Parts
Sedation, Analgesia, Delirium & Mobility (PADIS)	ABCDEF bundle, pain and sedation scoring, delirium prevention and management, early mobility, sleep promotion	1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5

Infection Prevention

Series	Covers	Parts
CLABSI Prevention	Insertion and maintenance bundles, CHG bathing, CRBSI diagnosis and organism-specific management, CUSP implementation	1 · 2 · 3 · 4

The CLABSI series above is written for the critical care context. For CLABSI prevention program and bundle guidance outside the ICU, see the CLABSI Prevention guide tree in the Vascular Access department.

Nutrition & Metabolism

Series	Covers	Parts
Nutrition in Critical Illness	Nutritional assessment, energy and protein targets, enteral and parenteral nutrition, refeeding prevention, special populations	1 · 2 · 3 · 4

Hemostasis & Transfusion

Series	Covers	Parts
VTE Prophylaxis in Critical Care	Risk assessment scores, pharmacologic and mechanical prophylaxis, IVC filters, ICU-acquired VTE, HIT	1 · 2 · 3 · 4
Transfusion Practice	RBC, platelet, plasma, and cryo thresholds, massive transfusion, viscoelastic testing, reactions, patient blood management	1 · 2 · 3 · 4

Renal

Series	Covers	Parts
Acute Kidney Injury & RRT	KDIGO staging, etiology and prevention, conservative management, RRT modalities and prescription, outcomes	1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5

How to Use This Section

Each series has the same anatomy: a series hub with the clinical framing, a contents table, and the complete source list in its footnotes, and part pages carrying the substance in reading order — each individually addressable, so the vasopressor content, the ARDSNet tables, or the CRRT prescription material can be bookmarked and cited on its own. For protocol development, start at the series hub and its source list; for point-of-care reference, deep-link the part page closest to the decision.

The prevention series (CLABSI, VAP, VTE prophylaxis) pair naturally with the policy library — the ICU series state the evidence and the policies operationalize it into institutional requirements.

Critical care overlaps every other department on this site; the adjacent hubs carry the connected content:

Emergency Medicine — the upstream half of resuscitation: cardiac arrest, trauma, airway and RSI, stroke, and toxicology, plus the shared sepsis pathway
Vascular Access — central venous catheters, arterial lines, and the insertion, maintenance, and complication management under every ICU infusion
Infection Prevention — the cross-department hub tying together CLABSI, VAP, and infection control policies
Oncology — febrile neutropenia, cancer-associated thrombosis, and immunotherapy toxicity in the critically ill cancer patient

Frequently asked questions

What does the critical care section of The Clinical Database cover?

Twelve evidence-based clinical guideline series for ICU practice: sepsis and septic shock, the Surviving Sepsis Campaign 2026 guidelines (adult and pediatric), post-cardiac arrest care and TTM, mechanical ventilation and ARDS, ventilator-associated pneumonia, sedation-analgesia-delirium (PADIS), CLABSI prevention, nutrition in critical illness, VTE prophylaxis, transfusion practice, and acute kidney injury with renal replacement therapy. Each series is a multi-part synthesis with DOI-linked citations.

How are these ICU guidelines built?

Each series synthesizes recommendations from multiple professional societies — for example, the sepsis content draws on the SCCM/ESICM Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines and the Sepsis-3 consensus definitions, and the CLABSI series draws on CDC and SHEA/IDSA guidance — into a single copyright-free reference with full DOI-linked citations, split into sequential part pages. Every page carries a published date and a lastmod date; prefer lastmod when citing.

What is the difference between the two sepsis series?

Sepsis and Septic Shock is the integrated management reference, synthesizing multiple sources into one clinical pathway from screening through long-term outcomes. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign 2026 series (adult and pediatric) are structured references to a single source: the SCCM/ESICM 2026 guidelines and their 129 adult and 61 pediatric recommendation statements.

Where should I look for CLABSI prevention guidance?

It depends on the question. The ICU CLABSI Prevention series covers central line infection prevention in the critical care context — bundles, CHG bathing, CRBSI diagnosis and organism-specific management, and CUSP implementation. For program- and bundle-level CLABSI prevention guidance outside the ICU, see the CLABSI Prevention guide tree in the Vascular Access department.

Are these guidelines a substitute for institutional protocols?

No. They are reference syntheses of published professional-society recommendations, intended to support clinicians and inform institutional protocol development. Local protocols and medical direction govern actual care.

ICU Clinical Guidelines

Comprehensive, evidence-based clinical guidelines for intensive care practice — synthesized from multiple professional society recommendations covering sepsis, ventilation, sedation, infection prevention, nutrition, hemostasis, renal support, post-arrest care, and transfusion medicine.

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