-
Everyone who provides care for patients in emergency departments is well aware of the annual winter-spring spike in patient volume due to influenza disease and its complications.
-
In a child who is critically injured there is the potential for many serious or life-threatening injuries. The initial focus must always be to stabilize the child's airway and breathing and, then, rapidly identify shock and aggressively correct volume deficits.
-
Transfers of care can be problematic if critical information is not shared when responsibility transitions between clinicians. Although such "hand-offs" create the opportunity for error, transfer management in United States hospitals has never been described on a national level.
-
-
TNF Blockers: Should You Be Concerned?; FDA Actions
-
In the early 2000s, substantial evidenced-based interventions were added to the care of critically ill patients that significantly reduced mortalityincluding low tidal volume ventilatory support for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), protocolized sedation with daily awakening, Drotrecogin-alpha for severe sepsis, tight glycemic control, corticosteroids for refractory septic shock and preventative strategies for ventilator associated pneumonia.
-
In this prospective observational study, Kollef and associates enrolled patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in 20 ICUs across the United States in order to characterize the patients and the antimicrobial regimens used in treating them, as well as their mortality and lengths of stay.
-
In this randomized-controlled trial, Koeman and associates wanted to determine the effect of two oral decontaminating gels, chlorhexidine 2% (CHX) or chlorhexidine 2% plus colistin 2% (CHX/COL), compared to a placebo, on the development of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in patients requiring more than 48 hours of mechanical ventilation.
-
In the United States during 2002, asthma accounted for 12.7 million physician visits; 1.9 million emergency department (ED) visits; 484,000 hospitalizations; and 4,261 deaths. The prevalence of asthma in our society has led it to be the eleventh most common diagnosis in the ED. The direct and indirect costs of the disease are estimated to exceed $14 billion annually in the United States alone.
-