The Emotional Toll of Treating Victims of Violence

Hospital leaders are implementing several techniques to address the lasting trauma of disaster emergencies. Hospital disaster drills often focus on transporting patients to the emergency department and moving them into the... read more

Mechanical Thrombectomy for Acute Ischemic Stroke

Coutinho et al have performed a timely post hoc analysis consisting of a patient population from 2 large, prospective, core laboratory–adjudicated trials: Solitaire With the Intention for Thrombectomy (SWIFT) and Solitaire... read more

Funding for NIH Would Be Cut 18% Under Budget

Funding for the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s premier medical research funding agency, would be cut by 18%, or $5.8 billion, from levels enacted for fiscal 2017, under the Trump administration budget.... read more

The Toll of Death and Disability From Traumatic Injury in the United States

This viewpoint describes the lack of funding for trauma research as a possible cause of increasing mortality rates from traumatic injury. In a seminal 1966 report, the National Research Council (NRC) declared that unintentional... read more

Decision Making Model Enables Resolution of Ethics Issues at the Bedside

A study from Switzerland that evaluated implementation of a stepped ethical decision-making model on three intensive care units (ICUs) and two geriatric wards found that it worked well, with staff able to find the time and... read more

Ratio-based Transfusion and Non-trauma Patients

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) urge caution in adopting ratio-based transfusion - a practice previously studied only in patients with severe traumatic injuries - in non-trauma patients. Their study published... read more

Visual Abstracts, A New Strategy for Creating Journal Articles

You might be interested in this initiative arising out of surgery, and primarily developed by Andrew M. Ibrahim MD, MSc of the University of Michigan. Dr. Ibrahim is a Clinical Lecturer in Surgery here and a Robert Wood Johnson... read more

Ultra-Short-Course Antibiotics for Patients With Suspected Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia but Minimal and Stable Ventilator Settings

Many patients started on antibiotics for possible ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) do not have pneumonia. Patients with minimal and stable ventilator settings may be suitable candidates for early antibiotic discontinuation.... read more

Presentations of adult septic patients in the prehospital setting as recorded by emergency medical services

The most common keywords related to septic patients’ symptom presentation were: abnormal/ suspected abnormal temperature (64.1.%), pain (38.4%), acute altered mental status (38.2%), weakness of the legs (35.1%), breathing... read more

Being New in the ICU

Being new in the ICU is not easy. You need to have the passion for critical care so much that you really don’t care how difficult it is. That passion is what gets you through the newbie stress. I was a new grad in the ICU,... read more

Recovery after Acute Kidney Injury

Little is known about how acute kidney injury (AKI) resolves, and whether patterns of reversal of renal dysfunction differ among patients with respect to ultimate recovery. We have identified five distinct recovery phenotypes... read more

The Gut Microbiome and Its Role in Cardiovascular Diseases

The trimethylamine/TMAO pathway likely represents only one of many microbe-dependent pathways that will ultimately be linked to cardiovascular disease pathogenesis, and proven to be an important diagnostic and therapeutic... read more

An Educational Intervention Optimizes the Use of Arterial Blood Gas Determinations Across ICUs

The large scale implementation of guidelines for ABG use reduced the number of inappropriately ordered ABG determinations over seven different multidisciplinary ICUs, without negatively impacting patient care. We saw a reduction... read more

Meta-Analysis of Therapeutic Hypothermia for Traumatic Brain Injury in Adult and Pediatric Patients

Therapeutic hypothermia is a likely beneficial treatment following TBI in adults, improving both neurologic outcomes and decreasing mortality rates. Our work suggests that the optimal management strategy to improve both morbidity... read more

Delirium in Critically Ill Children: An International Point Prevalence Study

In this multi-institutional, multinational point prevalence study of 994 subjects, delirium screening by the bedside nurse was feasible in children of all ages. PD was a common complication of critical illness, with a prevalence... read more

Never Stop Caring

I read with interest the piece by Wilson et al regarding their examination of end-of-life care patterns in hospitalized patients on their vascular surgery practice in Oregon. I applaud the authors for examining their practices... read more

Barriers to Regaining Control within a Constructivist Grounded Theory of Family Resilience in ICU

This paper discusses families' experiences of their interactions when a relative is admitted unexpectedly to an Australian ICU. A grounded theory methodology was adopted for the study. Data was collected between 2009−2013,... read more

Medical Device Interoperability 4.0: Disruptive Innovation for the ICU

Medical Device Interoperability in the ICU did not undergo any significant innovation in the past 30 years. This is the reason why data integration of medical device data into Electronic Medical Records (EMR/EHR) and Population... read more

Comparing Use of Low-Value Health Care Services Among U.S. Advanced Practice Clinicians and Physicians

Many physicians believe that advanced practice clinicians (APCs) provide care of relatively lower value. APCs and physicians provided an equivalent amount of low-value health services, dispelling physicians' perceptions... read more

Role of Combination Antimicrobial Therapy for Vancomycin‐Resistant Enterococcus faecium Infections

Enterococcus species are the second most common cause of nosocomial infections in the United States and are particularly concerning in critically ill patients with preexisting comorbid conditions. Rising resistance to antimicrobials... read more

The History of Patient Safety Awareness Week: March 12-18

The NPSF launched the first Patient Safety Awareness Week in 2002. This annual and globally recognized event typically occurs during the month of March. This year's Patient Safety Awareness Week will take place from... read more

New Guideline Will Allow First-Year Doctors to Work 24-Hour Shifts

First-year doctors in training will now be permitted to work shifts lasting as long as 24 hours, eight hours longer than the current limit, according to a professional organization that sets work rules for graduates from... read more