ICU Management & Practice, Volume 18 - Issue 2, 2018

Pre-ICU, emergency medicine, editorial, Jean-Louis Vincent

Pre-ICU

What happens before patients arrive in the ICU? We know that status pre-ICU is associated with outcomes after patients leave the ICU. We also know that we want patients to come to the ICU only if it is needed. This ties in to having an adequate emergency medicine system and innovative techniques in trauma as well as monitoring hospital patients at risk of clinical deterioration. Our cover story on pre-ICU...

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rapid response teams, RRT, medical emergency teams, MET, failure to rescue, adverse events

Rapid response teams

This article reviews the RRT system concept and provides an update on the current state of such systems, their challenges, their performance, the evidence supporting their usefulness and their evolution. Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) are the key components of Rapid Response Systems. RRT-based rescue systems were developed in response to evidence that many deteriorating hospital patients experienced “fail...

trauma, bleeding, trauma-induced coagulopathy, pre-hospital

Is pre-hospital coagulation management in trauma feasible?

Coagulation management remains a formidable challenge in severely bleeding trauma patients. A strong rationale suggests starting treatment of trauma-induced coagulopathy in the pre-hospital phase. The burden of trauma is increasing worldwide, particularly in less well-resourced nations. There are an estimated 5 million deaths per year, more than TB, malaria and HIV combined. Trauma particularly affects yo...

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Pre-ICU health organisation in Norway

Presents the main principles of the Norwegian acute healthcare system. Norway is a rather small country with a population of about 5.3 million. More than half of these inhabitants are located in and around the larger cities, with about a million in the capital region of Oslo. Hence, significant parts of the country are rural, with fjords and high mountains, combined with winter darkness and harsh weather...

pre-hospital, emergency medicine, Greece, refugees

Emergency pre-hospital care challenges: Greece

The ongoing economic crisis in Greece and inflow of refugees has led to changes to the pre-hospital emergency medicine services. Greece is a country of 10.1 million inhabitants, half of whom live in six cities: Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Patra, Larissa and Ioannina. In recent years the country drew media attention because of the financial crisis and the inflow of refugees, which often pushed state s...

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Accelerate, Accelerate Pheno system, sepsis

The Accelerate Pheno™ system in clinical practice: fast and accurate turnaround for critical results

Our clinical experiences of using the Accelerate Pheno™ system have greatly benefited patient care, providing earlier diagnostic certainty. Two complex sepsis cases are discussed, where the impact of rapid identification, with antibiotic sensitivities, of the causative organism from blood cultures is described. At Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, we endeavour to be ahead of the curve in diagno...

POCUS, point-of-care, ultrasound, thoracic ultrasonography, echocardiography, ICU, vascular ultrasonography, abdomen, ultrasonography

Point-of care ultrasonography in critical care

A brief overview of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in the ICU: for the already converted, a reminder of how POCUS has changed ICU practice; for the ultrasound naïve, an aperitif to leave the reader with interest in this evolving paradigm shift of patient care. As intensivists, we have all faced this scenario: a 28-year-old woman, 35 weeks pregnant, presenting to the emergency department with respirat...

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liver support, liver assist, bioartificial liver,

Liver support in the intensive care unit: mechanism of action and science

The idea of liver assist is extremely attractive for patients with liver failure, as the liver possesses huge capacity to regenerate. The hypothesis behind the use of extracorporeal liver assist is to enhance the regenerative environment by removing or replacing toxic molecules while the liver can regenerate. Extracorporeal liver assist devices are either based on the principles of blood purification or att...

visceral surgery, liver, transplantation, transfusion, coagulopathy

Management of bleeding in visceral surgery and liver transplantation

The implementation of patient blood management programmes led to reduced blood product usage. However, haemorrhage secondary to major surgery remains a major cause of potentially preventable death. Considering the heterogeneity of procedures and technical approaches, it is not surprising that the bleeding risk stratification for visceral surgery is not clearly defined. However, there is agreement on the hig...

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allergies, hypersensitivity, drugs, ICU

Immediate-type hypersensitivity reactions in the ICU

For the ICU patient, correct and timely diagnosis of drug hypersensitivity is required to administer emergency epinephrine treatment, and retrospective allergological investigation is needed to identify the culprit drug and safe alternatives. For ICU departments, epidemiological data regarding the incidence of drug-induced immediate-type hypersensitivity are scarce and the impact on patients’ outcome in t...

antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial stewardship programme, nosocomial infections, antibiotics

Results of antimicrobial stewardship programme implementation in multidisciplinary hospital

The interventional single-centre with historical control study was conducted in a 600-bed multidisciplinary hospital to evaluate 4 years’ results of an antimicrobial stewardship programme. We found a significant reduction in average duration of courses of antimicrobial therapy, length of stay of patients with infection in ICU, mortality in patients with bacteraemia, the rate of extended-spectrum beta-lact...

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The role of speech and language therapy in critical care

The role of speech and language therapists (SLTs) in critical care can be unclear so this article sets out the scope of practice to increase awareness of the value of SLTs as part of the wider multidisciplinary team. Speech and language therapists (SLT) are trained to deliver specialist clinical services to adults with a broad range of disorders, including hearing impairment, motor speech disorders (dysa...

social work, ICU, social workers, patients, family

Making the case for social work practice in the care of critically ill ICU patients

End-of-life issues occur frequently in the intensive care unit (ICU). The specific training and skills received by social workers provides them with the necessary tools to collaborate with the interdisciplinary team and provide holistic care to the patient and family. Research has shown that there is great variation in the level of participation of the social worker, often because they do not have a forma...

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Emirates Critical Care conference. Professor Hussain Al Rahma

Emirates Critical Care conference: where east meets west

Professor Hussain Al Rahma is Head of the Emergency and Critical Care Services Directorate at Al Zahra Hospital in Dubai, UAE. He is Chairman of the Emirates Critical Care Conference, President of the International Pan-Arab Critical Care Medicine Society and President of the Emirates Intensive Care Society. Dr. Al Rahma studied medicine at King Edward Medical Centre in Lahore, Pakistan and completed the Ger...

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blood bank, distribution, Africa

Distributing a life source in Africa

Lifebank has developed crucial infrastructure in Nigeria, enabling the efficient transportation and storage of blood, saving thousands of lives. HealthManagement editor Marianna Keen spoke to CEO and founder Temie Giwa-Tubosun about her journey. To what degree has the blood shortage in Nigeria been tackled so far, due to the work of LifeBank?It’s a very small degree to be perfectly honest. It’s such...

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out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, lighter emergency breathing tubes, cardiac arrest, Henry Wang, intubation

Lighter emergency breathing tubes associated with higher survival after OHCA

When paramedics used a new, more flexible laryngeal breathing tube to give oxygen to patients who had had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, these patients survived longer than patients who received oxygen via the traditional endotracheal tube, according to the results of a large randomised controlled trial conducted in the USA. The results from the Pragmatic Airway Resus...

bioengineering, artificial tracheas, Eben Alsberg

Bioengineering approach to artificial tracheas

A new paper reports an approach to growing tracheas by coaxing cells to form three distinct tissue types after assembling them into a tube structure. The research, led by Eben Alsberg, professor in Biomedical Engineering and Orthopaedic Surgery and director of the Alsberg Stem Cell & Engineered Novel Therapeutics (ASCENT) Lab at Case Western Reserve University, is published in Advanced Science (Dik...

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Aortic grafts, windpipe, airway, lung cancer, neg-stage tracheal lesions

Study: Aortic grafts are feasible to rebuild windpipe and airway

A French study of patients with lung cancer or end-stage tracheal lesions has successfully used cryopreserved human aortic grafts to rebuild the windpipe and airway sections removed because of disease. The study is published in JAMA, to concide with its presentation at the American Thoracic Society 2018 conference. The study, Airway and/or Pulmonary Vessels Transplantation (TRACHBRONCAR) [clinicaltrial...

ARDS, air pollution, American Thoracic Society Annual Meeting 2018

Study: Air pollution associated with ARDS hospitalisation in over 65s

A comparison of hospital admissions of patients over 65 and air pollution in the USA has found an association between exposure to pollutants and admission for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society. The researchers analysed data by zip code from nearly 30 million Medicare patients (65 years and over) discharged from hos...

ESICM LIVES 2018, European Society of Intensive Care Medicine Diversity Task Force, ESICM, Diversity Task Force, ESICM Diversity Task Force

European Society of Intensive Care Medicine Diversity Task Force

In March the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) (esicm.org) announced its Diversity Task Force (pictured), which will draft a policy paper and code of conduct related to gender, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, race, culture, socioeconomic status and multi professionalism. ESICM is the first major international medical society to publicly announce the formation of such a group....

gender gap in critical care, healthcare workforce, female intensivists, critical care leadership

Addressing the gender gap in critical care

A “persistent and pervasive” gender gap in academic critical care medicine is highlighted in a recent article in Critical Care Medicine by Geeta Mehta, MD, of the Department of Medicine and Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care Medicine, Sinai Health System, University of Toronto, Canada and colleagues from Canada and the UK (Mehta et al. 2018). The paper is the latest in a number of reports that...

ICU inter-professional rounding practices, International survey of the structure and organisation of ICUs, ISOREA, Survey: Models of critical care outreach systems

Have you answered these surveys on intensive care medicine?

Three surveys seeking information from ICUs around the world are currently open for data collection. ICU inter-professional rounding practices This online survey, supported by the World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine, is led by Dr. Andre Amaral, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, Canada. It is open to intensivists, trainees and ICU nurses. The purpose of the st...

Highlights from the I-I-I Blog

Visit https://healthmanagement.org/c/icu/list/blog or contact [email protected] Rana AwdishDirector of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program, Henry Ford Hospital; Medical Director of Care Experience, Henry Ford Health System; Faculty member, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, USA; Author of In Shock Changing the culture of medicine -one conversation at a time“As a physician...

NeuroIntensive Care: Update 2018, 41st Annual Conference on Shock, 9th World Congress of the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies, The Future of Critical Care - Brainstorming Meeting, 36th Vicenza Course on AKI & CRRT, 4th World Congress and Exhibition on Antibiotics and Antibiotic Resistance, Neurosciences in Intensive Care International Symposium 2018, Rapid Response System 2018, International Hypothermia and Temperature Management Symposium, 40th ESPEN Congress

Upcoming events/ courses/ congresses

JUNE4-8 NeuroIntensive Care: Update 2018 Como, Italy https://iii.hm/jxj 8-11 41st Annual Conference on Shock Coronado, USA https://iii.hm/jxk 9-13 9th World Congress of the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies Singapore https://iii.hm/jxl 10-12 The Future of Critical Care - Brainstorming Meeting Edinburgh, UK https://iii.hm/jxm 12-15 36th Vicenza Course on AKI &...