Simplifying APACHE II Scoring using PDA’s

The acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE II) 1 is a scoring system that provides a means for describing and predicting acute illness severity over a broad range of intensive care unit (ICU) patients 1-3 . Clinical investigators commonly use the APACHE II score in their research protocols to identify differences between treatment groups 4 . Severity scoring systems, such as the APACHE II, are also routinely used in ICU’s as part of the audit and management process 5 and for monitoring the acuity of patients within the ICU for quality assurance purposes 1-3, 6 .