The Utility of ICU Readmission as a Quality Indicator and the Effect of Selection
Intensive care readmission rates are used to signal quality, yet it is unclear whether they represent poor quality in the transition of care from the ICU to the ward, patient factors, or differences in survival of the initial... read more
Mastering Intensive Care – Making an Excellent Start to an Intensive Care Career
What are the biggest challenges when beginning as a fully-fledged intensive care clinician? How do you best use your senior colleagues when your experience bank is still small? What can you do to help achieve gender equity... read more
The Effect of a Quality Improvement Intervention on Perceived Sleep Quality and Cognition in the ICU
An ICU-wide quality improvement intervention to improve sleep and delirium is feasible and associated with significant improvements in perceived nighttime noise, incidence of delirium/coma, and daily delirium/coma-free status.... read more
Prognostic Effects of Delirium Motor Subtypes in Hospitalized Older Adults
One in three acutely ill hospitalized older adults who suffered hypo-active or mixed delirium died in the hospital. Clinicians should be aware that hypo-active symptoms of delirium, whether shown exclusively or in alternation... read more
Physician Genders and the Likelihood of ICU Admission in Hospital with Restricted ICU Bed Capacity
Despite the evidence that the patient gender is an important component in the intensive care unit (ICU) admission decision, the role of physician gender and the interaction between the two remain unclear. We demonstrated... read more
Radiologist-Level Pneumonia Detection on Chest X-Rays with Deep Learning
We develop an algorithm that can detect pneumonia from chest X-rays at a level exceeding practicing radiologists. Our algorithm, CheXNet, is a 121-layer convolutional neural network trained on ChestX-ray14, currently the... read more
The Effect of 6% Hydroxyethyl Starch (130/0.4) On AKI in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery
We have evaluated the effect of a colloid solution on acute kidney injury in paediatric cardiac surgery. A total of 195 patients were randomly divided into an hydroxyethyl starch group and a control group. In the starch group,... read more
Solutions to Alleviate Burnout
A range of factors drives clinician burnout, including workload, time pressure, clerical burden, and professional isolation. Clerical burden, especially documentation of care and order entry, is a major driver of clinician... read more
Effect of Emergency Department and ICU Occupancy on Admission Decisions and Outcomes for Critically Ill Patients
ICU admission decisions for critically ill emergency department patients are affected by medical ICU bed availability, though higher emergency department volume and other ICU occupancy did not play a role. Prolonged emergency... read more
Targeting Transfusion-Related Acute Lung Injury
We propose that the most promising therapeutic strategies to explore are interleukin-10 therapy, down-modulating C-reactive protein levels, targeting reactive oxygen species, or blocking the interleukin-8 receptors; all focused... read more
Moral distress and its contribution to the development of burnout syndrome among critical care providers
Correlation between moral distress and burnout was assessed among all intensive care unit (ICU) and the step–down unit (SDU) providers (physicians, nurses, nurse technicians and respiratory therapists). Researchers reported... read more
Effect of Nocturnal Sound Reduction on the Incidence of Delirium in ICU Patients
The incidence of delirium in ICU patients was significantly reduced after implementation of a nocturnal sound-reduction protocol. However, reported sleep quality did not improve. A significant difference in slope in the percentage... read more
Antipsychotics for Prevention and Treatment of Delirium
Delirium is a common, complex and costly condition in older adults. Every year, over 7 million hospitalized Americans suffer from delirium. A recent systematic review found that 31% of critical care patients have delirium,... read more
ICU Physiology in 1000 Words: Venous Doppler & Volume Tolerance
With the birth of "fluid responsiveness" physiology, there has been a slow and solemn drumbeat ushering the central venous pressure (CVP) up the squeaking planks of the hemodynamic gallows. Despite this, a few years ago... read more
Bedside Limited Echocardiography by the Emergency Physician Is Accurate During Evaluation of the Critically Ill Patient
Our study suggests that PEP sonographers are capable of obtaining images that permit accurate assessment of LVF and IVC volume. BLEEP can be performed with focused training and oversight by a pediatric cardiologist. We conducted... read more
Critical Care Nursing in Resource-Limited Environments
Critical Care Nursing in resource-limited environments is an emerging sub-speciality, currently centred on regions within sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. The World Federation of Critical Care Nurses (WFCCN) continues... read more
My ICU Patient Lived. Is That Enough?
As many as one in three patients sick enough to require a ventilator might develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Anxiety and depression are equally common, if not more so. Others survive critical illness but... read more
The Washington Manual of Critical Care
Prepared by residents and faculty at the Washington University School of Medicine, this pocket manual contains easy-to-read algorithms for the management of more than 80 medical and surgical problems arising in the intensive... read more
Transfers From ICU to Hospital Ward
Little is known about documentation during transitions of patient care between clinical specialties. Therefore, we examined the focus, structure and purpose of physician progress notes for patients transferred from the intensive... read more
Stress Ulcer Prophylaxis in ICU Patients Receiving Enteral Nutrition
Our results suggested that in patients receiving enteral feeding, pharmacologic SUP is not beneficial and combined interventions may even increase the risk of nosocomial pneumonia. We searched PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane... read more
The Overlooked Danger of Delirium in Hospitals
The condition, once known as "ICU psychosis," disproportionately affects seniors and those who have been heavily sedated—and the delusions can last long after they're discharged. Patients treated in intensive-care units... read more
Do We Need New Trials of Procalcitonin-Guided Antibiotic Therapy?
Using biomarkers as a guide to tailor the duration of antibiotic treatment in respiratory infections is an attractive hypothesis assessed in several studies. Recent work aiming to summarize the evidence assessed the effect... read more
