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In this issue: Azithromycin and cardiac risk; warfarin and heart failure; aspirin and VTE; effectiveness of long-acting contraceptives; and FDA actions.
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In this study, a research assistant who was already embedded in patient care teams to observe the process of care during bedside rounds was recruited to document hand hygiene compliance by nine internal medicine teams over a 3-month period.
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Supporters of 24-hour intensivist staffing in the ICU cite potential benefits to the patient as a result of more timely and accurate diagnostic evaluation, consistent provision of complex treatment, and overall higher quality, safer care.
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High-flow nasal cannula oxygen therapy (HFNC) is a generic name for oxygen delivery devices that provide oxygen nasally at higher flow rates than conventional nasal cannulae. Conventional ventilation usually can only provide flow rates up to 15 L/min, while HFNC can deliver flow rates up to 60 L/min.
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In this retrospective cohort study of patients with the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) in an Australian ICU, those with SIRS who received acetyl salicylic acid (ASA; aspirin) were compared to those who did not receive aspirin.
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This paper reports on the findings of a systematic literature review on noise and noise-reduction strategies in the intensive care unit (ICU).
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Arnold and colleagues at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis performed a 6-year retrospective cohort study of patients with bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) documented ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), diagnosed by accepted clinical and quantitative culture criteria, that was caused by either Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) and Acinetobacter baumannii(AB).
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The intensive care unit (ICU) can be immensely stressful for caregivers and can lead to burnout that results from chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors in the environment.
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Although current guidelines recommend delaying neuroprognostication during therapeutic hypothermia following resuscitation from cardiac arrest, this review of 55 consecutive patients so managed found that a "poor prognosis" designation was arrived at during the hypothermia period in most of them, including six patients who were eventually discharged with a favorable neurologic outlook.
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Wunsch and associates describe two patients who suffered respiratory arrest requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation while receiving polymyxin B.
