Advances in critical care medicine have contributed to a significant decline in intensive care unit (ICU) mortality over the past 30 years, and consequently, attention has been increasingly drawn to optimizing patients' survivorship experiences [1,2]. Medical advances, along with a growing cohort of older adults requiring ICU admission, predict a burgeoning population suffering from the long-term effects of critical illness [3]. More than half of ICU survivors will experience new or worsened psychological, physical, cognitive, or social impairments that persist long after their hospitalizations [4,5]. The concept of Post-Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) captures this phenomenon, and is now broadly recognized due to our enhanced understanding of the unintended consequences of the ICU experience, the growing concern for improving illness recovery, and the prioritization of optimizing long-term outcomes for patients and families [6,7].

Expansion of clinical care beyond hospitalization is necessary for clinicians and their patients; yet the presence of PICS clinics, evidence of their efficacy, and guidelines for best practices post-discharge remain limited. Serial cognitive and psychological assessments should begin during the early recovery phase (within four weeks following hospitalization), and extend to three- and twelve-month follow-ups for patients at high risk for post-ICU neuropsychiatric complications [8]. PICS is generally poorly understood and underrecognized by healthcare workers across disciplines providing long-term follow-up care for ICU survivors. These patients often demonstrate complex, multifaceted, and dynamic needs, including psychological distress, which require carefully-coordinated and multidisciplinary approaches – as opposed to the fragmented care commonly encountered [5,9].

The trajectory of recovery following near-death varies greatly depending on the interplay of unique biopsychosocial factors, including the particulars of the patient's health crisis, the experience of delirium, perceived and actual support at home, and the fear and trauma endured during intensive care. Apart from impaired physical functioning, cognitive impairment, and clinically significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress, patients also suffer from grief, existential distress, ruptures in their sense of personal identity, the inability to return to work, avoidance of healthcare systems, interpersonal relationship issues and more – all while navigating a new life requiring multiple subspecialty visits [[10], [11], [12], [13]]. Patients leaving the ICU often experience this as an “abrupt ejection” and face a higher number of new, primary care-related medical diagnoses compared to those never admitted to an ICU [9,14]. Thus, closer monitoring and care coordination are essential after discharge and should ideally operate within a centralized recovery center appropriately resourced to address the distinct set of issues in this patient population.

Multidisciplinary interventions constitute an area of heightened interest in an effort to humanize both clinical practice and the recovery journey for patients. Intensivists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and primary care physicians (among other providers) have expanding roles within this multidisciplinary space of patient care and clinical research. The goal of integration of care addressing post-ICU survivorship issues has resulted in the development of post-ICU clinics.