Introduction: Description of altered cardiovascular function in the Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome (MODS) has been unsatisfactory. By analogy to the PaO2/FIO2 ratio as a measure of physiologic derangement corrected for therapy, we developed a simple composite measure termed the PAR, the product of the heart rate and the ratio of the mean arterial to central venous pressure (HRxCVP/MAP). We evaluated the PAR as a measure of cardiovascular dysfunction in the ICU.