Abstract

The World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies (WFPICCS) is an international body that brings together international expertise, experience, and influence to improve the outcomes of children suffering from life-threatening illness and injury. Its mission is educational, scientific, and charitable in nature. WFPICCS is committed to a global environment, in which all children have access to intensive and critical care of the highest standard. It exists to find ways of improving the care of critically ill children throughout the world, and making that knowledge available to those who care for such children. As in an ideal world all children should have access to state of the art critical care services, this is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Faced with this reality, the member societies of the WFPICCS will strive to develop the best model and provide the best care for critically ill and injured children worldwide. The challenge is to find the appropriate role that we need to (and can effectively) play in decreasing both unnecessary death and suffering for children. Clearly, we cannot achieve these goals on our own, hence WFPICCS visualizes close cooperation and collaboration with other agencies offering care to critically ill or injured children such as the World Health Organization, World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine, International Pediatric Associations, and regional organizations and programs to achieve our objectives. We feel that this document while imperfect is a good starting point and hope that it will stimulate more discussion to guide the agenda of the federation for years to come.