Latest Articles in Decision-Support

The preanalytical phase of the blood gases study is the most susceptible to errors, causing increased time and costs for patients and hospitals. Knowledge and training of the involved health personnel must be constant to improve results.   Introduction Arterial or venous blood gases

Patients in the intensive care unit generally have complex healthcare issues with underlying comorbidities and organ dysfunction. They are thus more vulnerable to medical errors. Often, the treatment of these patients requires the use of interventions that could potentially result in adverse event

Join our panellists on March 1 at 16:00 CET as they discuss the prevalence and types of medical errors in the ICU, the psychological impact of these errors, and strategies to prevent them and improve the safety of critically ill patients. Moderator Jean-Louis Vincent  Editor-i

Significant efforts have been made to make hospitals and ICUs as safe as possible. As healthcare workers (HCWs) try to get through this pandemic, the focus of this article is to explore practical steps to help these workers better cope with the psychological effects of being i

Adverse events (AEs) are common among critically ill patients. Evidence about the nature, preventability and predictability of AEs can be used to reinvest in efforts to reduce them and improve patient safety in ICUs. Case Mr. A, a previously well 70-year-old male was

Medication errors are common in the complex environment of the ICU. This article provides an overview of the prevalence and impact of these errors and the processes that could help reduce their incidence. Introduction Medicines are the most widely used intervention in the critical care e

Healthcare professionals/trainees are often unprepared to experience and learn from errors due to structural characteristics of our systems and training programmes. Restructuration is needed to allow learning from errors. Introduction Medical error is considered one of the ten leading ca

Why digitalisation of intensive care medicine means less rather than more data Intensive Care Medicine is generating an amount of data that is hardly analysable by humans. Digitalising and using artificial intelligence has to focus on providing less rather than more data. Introd

Critical Care Medicine has existed for many years, but was only recognised as a specialty in the last 40 years or so. However, during this time, there has been a tremendous amount of change. Over the years, our understanding of different critical illnesses has improved, and our treatment strategies

Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) are today, a reality. More complex, useful systems will be developed in the near future, forging CDSS an essential part of ICU monitoring. However, we need to understand the algorithms embedded in CDSS and to assess them correctly. They will need to first