Editorial
Cost Effectiveness in Care
Author Jean-Louis Vincent Head, Department of Intensive Care, Erasme Hospital Free University of Brussels, Belgium Quality of care has always been our primary goal as critical care professionals. We strive daily to find yet new methods and treatments to increase our effectiveness so that we save or improve as many lives as possible. However, there is always one drawback to quality that we have...
News & Innovations
WHO Publishes Key Health Statistics
www.who.org On 18th May, the World Health Organization (WHO) published World health statistics 2007, the most complete set of health statistics from its 193 Member States. This edition also highlights trends in ten of the most closely watched global health statistics. It is the annual reference for a set of 50 health indicators in countries around the world and is also available as an online database...
New Initiative to Tackle Health Worker Migration
The Health Worker Migration Policy Initiative held its first meeting on 15th May at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) headquarters in Geneva. It is aimed at finding practical solutions to the worsening problem of health worked migration from developing to developed countries. The initiative, convened and co-funded by the Global Health Workforce Alliance, is made up of two groups that will work closel...
PULSION launches PiCCO2
At the International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (ISICEM) in March this year, PULSION presented their new product PiCCO2, the first product of a new generation in hemodynamic monitoring. PiCCO2 provides its users with a general overview, as well as detailed insights into the different aspects of the cardio-vascular system through a combination of technologies. Its functions include c...
Largest Study on Stroke and Fabry Disease (SIFAP)
At the “Stroke in Young Fabry Patients” conference, which took place in Berlin, in February 2007, the largest study on the causes of stroke in young patients up to date, SIFAP, was launched. The main focus of the study is Fabry Disease – one of the possible causes of this type of stroke. In the first step (SIFAP1), a total of 5,000 young stroke patients at over 30 European centres are going to be tho...
ARROWg+ard Antimicrobial Catheter Technology: New Generation Now Available in Europe
www.arrowintl.com On October 1st, 2006 Arrow International received CE mark clearance for its ARROWg+ard Blue PLUS new catheter generation with Chlorhexidine along the entire intraluminal path and increased levels of Chlorhexidine on the catheter's external surface for better protection. Chlorhexidine-silver sulfadiazine is a CDC level 1B recommendation for the prevention of infection, for implementa...
Cover Story: Cost Effectiveness in Care
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Critical Care
Authors Dominique M. Vandijck, MSc, MA Department of Intensive Care, Ghent University Hospital – Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium Johan M. Decruyenaere, MD, PhD Director Intensive Care Department, Ghent University Hospital, Professor in Intensive Care and Internal Medicine, Ghent University, Belgium Lieven Annemans, MSc, PhD Professor...
Costs of Intermediate Care and Intensive Care
Author Maurizia Capuzzo, MD Department of Surgical, Anaesthetic and Radiological Sciences, Section of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care, University Hospital of Ferrara , Italy Italian representative in the Council of European Society of Intensive Care Medicine Deputy chair of the Section on Health Services, Research and Outcome Intermediate care units (IMCUs) are suitable for patients need...
Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) Funding for intensive care
Author Akos Csomos, MD, DEAA, PhD Surgical Intensive Care Unit Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) is by definition, a case mix classification scheme, which was designed in the 1960s to evaluate hospital performance. It was then adopted some 20 years later as a base unit of payment in the Medicare system in the United States (Inglehart, 1983). There were 467...
Economic Impact of Catheter-Related Bloodstream Infections
Authors Dominique M. Vandijck, MSc, MA Department of Intensive Care, Ghent University Hospital – Ghent University, Belgium Johan M. Decruyenaere, MD, PhD Director Medical and Surgical Intensive Care Units, Ghent University Hospital, Professor in Intensive Care and Internal Medicine, Ghent University, Belgium Sonia Labeau PhD-student, Department of Healthcare, Ghent Uni...
Forum
Tested Disposable Invasive Blood Pressure Transducers all Perform Excellently
Author Erik Billiet, MSc Biomedical Engineering Head of Department, University of Ghent, Belgium Forum is the new rubric of ICU Management providing a discussion platform for critical care practitioners. The following article is a response to Dr. Cochard's "Performance evaluation of European pressure sensors." Introduction Reliable diagnosis and therapeutic interventions on critically...
Matrix Features
Genetic Variation in the Critical Care Setting
Author Bonny Lewis Bukaveckas, PhD, FACB Department of Pharmacy and of Pathology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA Pharmacogenetics has made significant progress in recent years. Advances in pharmacogenetics and information technology will benefit critical care patients most of all. General Introduction to Pharmacogenetics An intersection of the disciplines pharmacology a...
Recommendations for Medication Errors Prevention
Author Ph. Garnerin, DVM, PhD Quality Manager, Anaesthesiology Service, Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland Drugs that are used in intensive care settings are numerous and often have narrow therapeutic margins. Patients have severe conditions that evolve quickly and require frequent adaptation of treatments. In such a dynamic and complex environment, medication errors are admittedly...
Dose-Finding and Optimisation Designs
Author Ajmal Eusuf, MB, BS, FRCA Malachy Columb, MB, BCh, BAO., FRCA Acute Intensive Care Unit University Hospital of South Manchester, Wythenshawe, UK Introduction Knowledge of the issues related to clinical research is a requirement to the fuller understanding of the practice of evidence-based medicine (Columb et al. 2003). The prospective double-blind randomised controlled trial is e...
Recognition of the Critically Ill, the Use of Early Warning Scores
Authors AJ Turley Cardiology Specialist Registrar J Gedney Consultant anaesthetist and intensivist The James Cook University Hospital, Marton Road, Middlesbrough, UK “Patients do not die of their disease. They die of the physiological abnormalities of their disease.” Sir William Osler Introduction Recognition of the critically ill patient is of paramount importance and is...
Product Comparison: PCA Infusion Pumps
PCA Infusion Pumps
ECRI Europe Weltech Centre, Ridgeway Welwyn Garden City, Herts AL7 2AA, United Kingdom Tel. +44 (0)1707 871511 Fax. +44 (0)1707 393138 [email protected] www.ecri.org.uk ECRI is a totally independent nonprofit research agency designated as a Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization (WHO). Such organizations are appointed to contribute to WHO’s public health mission by provid...
Management
Change Management: Part 1 – Sources of and Barriers to Change
Author Ronald Pauldine, MD Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore, USA Todd Dorman, MD, FCCM Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA Introduction This is the first of three articles in a seri...
Combining Medicine and Justice: ICU Nurses can Help Heal Patients’ Lives
Author Constance A. Hoyt, MSN, RN University of California, Riverside, California, USA Critical care providers are often confronted with patients who may have been victims of crime, neglect or abuse. Nurses can easily combine their regular patient care duties with some basic forensic practices to help identify and protect these patients. Introduction Nurses in all healthcare settings ha...
Risk Analysis: Techniques for Improving Patient Safety in Critical Care
Author Andrew Smith, FRCA, MRCP Royal Lancaster Infirmary and Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University, UK Introduction The ‘patient safety’ movement has come about through an appreciation that the techniques and approaches that have been used to improve safety in other industries can be applied to healthcare (van der Schaaf, 2002). The underlying assumption in this approach,...
Views & Interviews
An Interview with Dr. Claudio Ronco
Prof. Claudio Ronco shares his management experience and vision as Director of the Nephrology Department at St. Bortolo Hospital, Vicenza, Italy. May I Ask You, by Way of Introduction to Our Readers, How Long You’ve Been the Director of Your Unit? I have been director of the Department of Nephrology Dialysis and Renal Transplantation at St. Bortolo Hospital since 2002. Before that, I was director...
Country Focus: Poland
The Healthcare System in Poland
Author Jacek Lukomski Director of Regional Hospital, Poznan Vice President of Union of Polish Health Care Employers, Poland The reforms of the healthcare system in Poland were initiated in 1989 along with the reforms of the national economy. Their positive effects were manifested mainly by shorter hospitalisations, improvement of primary healthcare and effective management of hospitals even t...
Intensive Care in Poland
Author Adam Mikstacki, MD, PhD ESICM Council Member, Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Therapy, Karol Marcinkowski University of Medical Sciences, Regional Hospital, Poznan, Poland The development of intensive care (IC) in Poland has been closely connected to the advances in anaesthesiology. The beginnings of these two fields in Poland go back to the 1950s and 1960s. The precursors...
Polish Working Group for Sepsis
Author Prof. Andrzej Kuebler Head of Working Group for Sepsis, Polish Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care, Poland On November 19th, 2001 the Polish Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Therapy established a Working Group for Sepsis, motivated by the increasing worldwide interest in the syndrome and the lack of epidemiological information about its occurrence and course in Polan...
Congress Previews
European Society of Intensive Care Medicine: 25 Years of Progress and Innovation
In 2007, the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) will celebrate 25 years since it was founded in Geneva in 1982. To mark this anniversary, the Society’s Annual Congress in Berlin this year will combine the special celebrations with an exciting and novel scientific programme. ESICM’s Annual Congress has, over the recent years, been going from strength to strength. Each year, the...