Editorial

A warm welcome to Brussels for the 35th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine. In 1980 we welcomed just a few hundred delegates to Brussels - pre-mobile phones and pre-Internet! While networking has become even easier with mobile and online technology, nothing beats meeting our colleagues in person. This year more than 6,300 participants will convene for ISICEM. Allow us a little...

Editor-in-Chief, Professor Jean-Louis Vincent, has welcomed three distinguished intensivists to the ICU Management Editorial Board. Prof. Jan de Waele, MD, Phd (Belgium) Prof. De Waele is an intensivist at the Surgical ICU of the Ghent University Hospital in Ghent, Belgium. As the current President of WSACS – the Abdominal Compartment Society, he will host the 2015 World Congress on the Abdominal Co...

News

25 years of lung transplantation was marked at the Medical University of Vienna and Vienna General Hospital (AKH Wien) on 6 March with a celebration and symposium. The first lung transplantation was performed at the medical faculty of the University of Vienna in November 1989. 25 years later the Medical University of Vienna/ AKH Wien is one of the four world-leading centres for lung transplantation along w...

One-third of the U.S. population does not have access to a primary stroke centre within one hour by ambulance, according to a new study published online in the March 4 issue of Neurology. Even under optimal conditions, a large proportion of the U.S. populace would be unable to access a stroke centre within this timeframe. Certification of hospitals as stroke centres includes primary stroke centres and...

Prof. Antonio Artigas Director, Critical Care Centre, Sabadell Hospital, Barcelona, Spain ICU Management Editorial Board Member 1. What were you doing 35 years ago? I was working in the Intensive Care Service at Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona. 2. What do you love about ISICEM? ISICEM is a good opportunity to meet friends and for international scientific exchange. 3. Do you ha...

Cover Story - The Lung

This review discusses some of the key advances from the 2005 ATS / IDSA guidelines publication and emphasises future research for unsolved issues. Ten years have passed since the publication of the American Thoracic Society (ATS)/ Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) guidelines on nosocomial pneumonia (NP) (2005), which defined three different conditions regarding where or when the infection w...

In less than two decades noninvasive mechanical ventilation (NIV) has become a cornerstone therapy of acute respiratory failure (ARF). It is now well established that NIV can reduce intubation and mortality rates in patients with acute-on-chronic respiratory failure (i.e. severe acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) (Brochard et al. 1995) or acute cardiogenic pulmonary oedema (Masip...

Physiotherapists are key members of the Australian intensive care unit multidisciplinary team, providing respiratory management, exercise and mobilisation. Here, evidence underpinning the roles of physiotherapists and future challenges are highlighted. Physiotherapists have provided services to intensive care units from the early period of their establishment within the Australian healthcare system. Th...

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is characterised by increased permeability pulmonary oedema (Ware and Matthay 2000). Patients with ARDS often experience haemodynamic instability, due either to an associated sepsis or to the consequences of mechanical ventilation with positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) (Fougères et al 2010). Clinicians can be tempted to administer fluids in such situations...

Point-of-View

By George F. Winter Eddleston, Peeblesshire, Scotland [email protected] Sepsis is a constant challenge facing those who care for critically ill patients. Sepsis and septic shock contribute substantially to morbidity and mortality in this group, and in 2012 authors of guidelines for appropriate management of these conditions highlighted demand for rapid, reliable microbiological tests (Dellinger et al...

Series - Infections

This article highlights four interventions that combat healthcare-associated infections (HCAI), have a good evidence base, and are relatively inexpensive and cost-effective. However, they are not widely implemented into clinical practice. HCAI, such as ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSI), are serious, expensive and continue to present a major challe...

Matrix

The management of fluids in critically ill patients is a continuing challenge. Although the infusion of generous amounts of intravenous fluids is usually required during the early stage of resuscitation, fluid restriction is often desirable after the initial phase and stabilisation. Indeed several groups reported a poorer outcome when intravenous fluids were administered following a liberal policy, as oppo...

Laboratory measurements are widely used in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). This review describes an approach to developing and implementing the use of rationalised laboratory measurements. Drawing blood and requesting laboratory measurements is probably one of the most frequently performed interventions in critically ill patients. There is probably not a single diagnosis that can be established in the I...

Advertorial

New technique provides simple, minimally invasive extracorporeal lung support. The Challenge of Optimizing Lung Protection in ARDS Despite many advances, ARDS mortality remains between 27-45%.1 Few interventions have proven effective at improving outcomes in ARDS, a notable exception being the use of low tidal volume (≤ 6 mL/kg PBW) along with limiting plateau pressure to less than 30 cmH2O and provi...

Salvia medical used to be known among major providers and insiders primarily as an innovative development company for anesthesia ventilators, intensive care ventilators, and clinical respiratory therapy devices. All of that changed when Salvia medical presented its new ventilator family at the European Anaesthesiology Congress in Sweden in 2014. The integration of the latest EIT technology by Swisstom int...

Management

If you want to know how we practised medicine 5 years ago, read a textbook. If you want to know how we practised medicine 2 years ago, read a journal. If you want to know how we practise medicine now, go to a (good) conference. If you want to know how we will practise medicine in the future, listen in the hallways and use FOAM. — From International EM Education Efforts & E-Learning by Joe Lex 2011...

The Internet is full of blogs. They are multithemed sites, self-managed by the authors and demonstrative of, and only limited by, the authors’ level of creativity. They are potentially accessible to anyone and everyone. There are numerous health blogs, but the proportion of health professionals who are bloggers is low. Having a blog is a cost-effective option to share health information, to promote inter...

ICU Management interviewed Gabriel Heras La Calle MD (Intensive Care Physician, blogger of TheIC-HU Project: Humanizing Intensive Care) about the blog. In just 8 months of existence, the IC-HU Project has been awarded the Best Health Ideas 2014 Award by Diario Médico in the legal, ethical and deontological section. When and why did you start your blog? I started the blog in February 2014, because I r...

Interview

Professor Julia Wendon is a liver intensive care specialist and Clinical Director of the Critical Care Division at King’s College Hospital in London, UK. Are survival rates for acute liver failure (ALF) still improving? What can that be attributed to? Yes, the outcome for ALF continues to improve, and this is seen both in those managed medically and in those who require transplantation. The reaso...

Country Focus

The Israeli Cardiac and Intensive Care Nursing Society is very active and includes a sub-group, the evidence-based nursing (EBN) ICU group. This group meets once a month. The participants include bedside nurses, researchers, educators and head nurses from general ICUs, open heart surgery, intensive cardiac care and cath labs. For the past 10 years we have chosen cutting-edge issues to investigate the evide...

Agenda

Highlights of the 2015 7th World Congress of the Abdominal Compartment Society, Ghent, Belgium , May 28-30, 2015 The 7th World Congress of the Abdominal Compartment Society in Ghent in May 2015 follows on the recent successful meetings in Cartagena, Colombia (2013), Orlando, USA (2011) and Dublin, Ireland (2009), and brings the meeting back to Belgium where the WSACS 2007 meeting took place. Th...

April 9-11 11th Emirates Critical Care Conference 2015 (ECCC 2015) Dubai, UAE www.eccc-dubai.com 16-17 Network For The Advancement Of Transfusion Alternatives 16th Annual Symposium on Patient Blood Management, Hateamsioss and Thrombosis 2015 (NATA 2015) Prague, Czech Republic www.nataonline.com 23-24 12th Annual Critical Care Symposium 2015 Manchester, UK www.critcaresymposium....



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