Critical Care Alert
RSSArticles
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Post Intensive Care Syndrome: Risk Factors and Prevention Strategies
Each year, approximately 800,000 patients in the United States develop an illness that results in admission to an ICU and need for mechanical ventilation.
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Early Recognition and Management of ARDS
ABSTRACT & COMMENTARY: Early recognition of ARDS with strict adherence to low tidal volume ventilation is important for reducing mortality in the ICU.
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The High and Low Cost of Dying
Nurses perceive increased quality of dying with lower costing end-of-life care, while underinsured families perceive increased quality of dying with higher costs.
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Sleep-promoting Interventions for Critically Ill Patients
ABSTRACT & COMMENTARY: Efforts have been made over the past couple of years to test and implement interventions in the ICU to promote sleep.
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Benefits of NIV in COPD Supported in Routine Clinical Practice
In a large cohort study, COPD patients managed with noninvasive ventilation had lower inpatient mortality compared to those managed with invasive ventilation.
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Multicenter QI Project Results in a 23% Reduction in Medical Errors
Implementation of a quality improvement project focused on handoffs reduced medical errors by 23% and preventable adverse events by 30%.
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Patients’ Recollections of Therapeutic Paralysis in the ICU
Ballard and colleagues conducted this qualitative study to obtain recollections of critically ill patients who were given neuromuscular blocking agents (NMBAs) (for a minimum of 6 hours) and sedatives and/or analgesics. -
Intensive Insulin Therapy in the Medical ICU
In a previous study involving patients in a surgical ICU1, Van den Berghe and associates at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, showed that tight control of serum glucose levels by means of a strict insulin infusion protocol decreased both morbidity and mortality. -
Intensivist-to-Bed Ratio Impacts Length-of-Stay in the Medical ICU
This study examined the effect of variations in ICU staffing, defined in terms of intensivist-to-ICU bed ratio, on ICU length-of-stay (LOS) and ICU and hospital mortality. The study was conducted at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN over a 9-month period when the medical ICU underwent a series of planned changes which resulted in its capacity increasing from 15 to 24 beds. -
Special Feature: Care Bundles in the ICU
The Institute of Medicine has documented that the hospitaland the ICU in particularis an environment in which errors are all too frequent.