Stories Category: Intensive Care
Initial Nutritional Management During NIV and Outcomes
Patients starting noninvasive ventilation (NIV) to treat acute respiratory failure are often unable to eat and therefore remain in the fasting state or receive nutritional support. Nearly three-fifths of patients receiving... read more
Doctors make big money testing urine for drugs, then ignore abnormal results
Doctors have quadrupled spending (and profits) on urine drug screens and related tests, but often do nothing with abnormal results. In April 2014, state and federal drug agents raided Jeffrey Campbell’s medical clinic in... read more
The Prognostic Value of MRI in Moderate and Severe TBI
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability, yet many predictors of outcome are not precise enough to guide initial clinical decision-making. Although increasingly used in the early phase following... read more
Diagnostic Accuracy of Point-of-Care Ultrasound Performed by Pulmonary Critical Care Physicians for Right Ventricle Assessment in Patients With Acute Pulmonary Embolism
This is the first study to evaluate pulmonary critical care fellows' and intensivists' use of goal-directed echocardiography in diagnosing right ventricular dysfunction in acute pulmonary embolism. Pulmonary Critical Care... read more
Tissue Edema, Fluid Balance, and Patient Outcomes in Severe Sepsis
Severe sepsis and septic shock remain among the deadliest diseases managed in the intensive care unit. Fluid resuscitation has been a mainstay of early treatment, but the deleterious effects of excessive fluid administration... read more
Will You Be My Mentor?
The origins of mentoring date back to Odysseus, who entrusted care of his son to Mentor when he set off to fight the Trojan wars. Mentor became a trusted advisor, teacher, and friend to Telemachus, epitomizing the attributes... read more
Inside the lives of America’s last iron lung patients
Long after the polio vaccine stemmed the disease that once infected thousands of people, a handful of U.S. polio survivors still rely on decades-old iron lung machines to stay alive-and must overcome increasing obstacles... read more
Diabetes Risks and Outcomes in COPD Patients
The relationship between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and diabetes remains incompletely understood. This study evaluated diabetes risk and post-diabetes outcomes in COPD patients with and without exacerbations.... read more
Use of Wearable Devices for Post-discharge Monitoring of ICU patients
Wearable devices generate signals detecting activity, sleep, and heart rate, all of which could enable detailed and near-continuous characterization of recovery following critical illness. We found that wearable devices could... read more
iSepsis – A 30ml/kg Bolus: Yes or No -The Results
The results of both surveys are not surprising. This recommendation has never been prospectively tested in a large RCT and has little supporting evidence. Imagine the American Heart Association (AHA) or the American Diabetes... read more
Critical Illness, Disability, and the Road Home
Ability to participate in the community is an important outcome for all patients after a major illness, it signposts reaching the end of the road home. A patient's ability to return to the priority tasks of daily living impacts... read more
Faecal Transplant Effectively Treats Recurrent or Unresponsive Clostridium Difficile
Using a faecal microbiota transplant cured 92% of people with Clostridium difficile that had recurred or had not responded to antibiotics. Faecal transplant also had a lower risk of treatment failure than the antibiotic vancomycin.... read more
Implementing Clinical Practice Changes in Critical Care
Lessons learned in a national collaborative of over 60 ICU teams. Improving care in the intensive care unit (ICU) is a global area of focus for clinicians worldwide. The complexity of the ICU environment, compounded by multiple... read more
Hypoxia and Hypotension in Patients Intubated by Physician Staffed Helicopter EMS
The effective treatment of airway compromise in trauma and non-trauma patients is important. Hypoxia and hypotension are predictors of negative patient outcomes and increased mortality, and may be important quality indicators... read more
New Sepsis Definition (Sepsis-3) and Community-acquired Pneumonia Mortality
qSOFA and CRB outperformed SIRS and presented better clinical usefulness as prompt tools for patients with community-acquired pneumonia in the emergency department. Among the tools for a comprehensive patient assessment,... read more
Corticosteroid Therapy for Critically Ill Patients with the MERS
Corticosteroid therapy in patients with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was not associated with a difference in mortality after adjustment for time-varying confounders, but was associated with delayed MERS coronavirus... read more
