About the Center

The Center for Excellence in Critical Care was established in 1998 as an alliance between healthcare practitioners and researchers at the University of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota Medical Center-Fairview committed to the advancement of research, training and practice in critical care. The Center joins participants in a comprehensive and coordinated interdisciplinary effort to provide benefits of world-class clinical and translational research to critically ill patients. The Center participants presently include well-known research faculty, distinguished practitioners and highly qualified postgraduate trainees from the Academic Health Center of the University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Medical Center-Fairview, Regions Hospital and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Participants’ home schools, colleges and departments include the Medical School departments of surgery, anesthesiology, pediatrics, medicine/pulmonary and critical care and physical medicine and rehabilitation; the School of Nursing, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Public Health, the Center for Bioethics and the Fairview University Medical Center Pharmacy and ICU units. (Individual faculty information is listed in the faculty and staff section).

Critical care research is at the core of the Center for Excellence in Critical Care. The Center allows discussion between participants on their research interests and questions impacting the care of the critically ill patient and facilitates research collaboration. It provides a mechanism through which development, discussion and evaluation of ideas for improving critical care medicine, critical care delivery systems and patient outcomes from a scholarly, interdisciplinary viewpoint can emerge. The Center coordinates interdisciplinary educational opportunities to train broadly exposed and highly qualified critical care practitioners and researchers.

The Center participants address ethical issues surrounding critical care, evaluate cost-effectiveness and quality of care utilizing evidence-based practice protocols, evaluate interdisciplinary care delivery models and improve the patient and family experience.

The following information is available about the Center for Excellence in Critical Care:

• Center Mission
• Center Goals
• History of the Alliance