Issues

Volume 23 - Issue 3, 2023

Fri, 26 May 2023

• Greener ICU

  Prof Jean-Louis Vincent, MD, PhD

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  Intensive care units are essential in providing life-saving care to critically ill patients. However, ICUs can have an environmental impact. Approximately 5% of worldwide anthropogenic greenhouse gases result from healthcare activities. ICUs use significant energy to power equipment, ventilators, monitoring systems, and other life-support devices. They also consume substantial amounts of water while...

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• The Green Intensive Care: From Environmental Hotspot to Action

  Nicole Hunfeld

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  Together we must reduce the impact of the healthcare sector and shift towards a circular economy. This paper describes the shift of three ICU environmental hotspots: gloves, gowns, and CRRT bags. The healthcare sector is one of the most carbon-intensive sectors, contributing to 4.4% of global net greenhouse gas emissions and toxic air pollutants (Karliner et al. 2022). Around 71% of emissions are p...

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• Moving Environmental Sustainability from the Fringe to the Centre Ground in Critical Care

  Dr Jack Parry-Jones, FRCP FFICM

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  Critical care must move to a way of working that recognises climate change is a medical emergency, necessitating us all to put sustainability at the forefront of our actions as a multidisciplinary team working together in the best interests of our patients, our environment and our resources. People’s health depends on the health of the planet. The ever-escalating climate crisis negatively imp...

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• Green ICU-4Ps: It Is Not An Option To Not Accomplish It

  Irene Salinas Gabiña

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  The critically ill patient should be framed within sustainable medicine. It is crucial to mitigate the causes so that we do not have to adapt to the undesirable effects of the unsustainability of our clinical practice. We propose a simultaneous approach to sustainability in people, products, processes, and our planet. GREEN ICU (GREater ENvironmental sustainability in Intensive Care Units) is a mul...

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• Call for a Green ICU

  Dr. Marlies Ostermann

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  Intensive care units are carbon hotspots that contribute three times the GHG emissions as acute care units per bed day. Clinical staff must be aware of GHG production's impact and potential mitigations. This article summarises key points and initiatives to make this happen. Healthcare contributes approximately 5% of worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) production (Lenzen et al. 2020). Some regional variat...

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• Carbon Footprint in ICU: A New Meaningful Outcome in Research Trials

  Matthieu Bernat, MD

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  Reducing the carbon footprint in healthcare is a requirement for guaranteeing the best future for humanity. Here we suggest that the carbon footprint be assessed as a potential endpoint for future trials in critical care. The climate crisis is a threat to global health. The temperature of the atmosphere has been rising exponentially since the industrial revolution due to anthropogenic greenhouse ga...

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• Intravenous Fluids in Critically Ill Patients: When Less is Better

  Orlando Ruben Perez-Nieto

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  While intravenous fluids have traditionally been a routine treatment for most critically ill patients, many severe pathologies now suggest a preference for conservative fluid therapy over liberal fluid administration. Intravenous fluid resuscitation began in 1832 during the cholera pandemic, improving intravascular volume and electrolyte recovery in patients with severe hypovolaemic shock secondary...

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• Current Airway Management During Anaesthesia - The STARGATE Study

  Vincenzo Russotto, MD

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  An overview of the International obServational sTudy on AiRway manaGement in operAting room and non-operaTing room anaEsthesia (STARGATE study) that will collect information on peri-intubation adverse events and airway management procedures in adult patients undergoing general anaesthesia to receive surgery or other diagnostic/therapeutic procedures. After two years from the publication of the larg...

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• Medical Errors in the Preanalytical Phase of Blood Gases Test

  Jesus S. Sanchez-Diaz, MD, MSc

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  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. Arterial or venous blood gases test is a frequent tool in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) commonly used for the respiratory system evaluation during respiratory failure...

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• Upcoming events/courses/congresses

  31-2 JUN 9th World Congress of the ERAS® Society 2023 Lisbon, Portugal https://iii.hm/1kvk 3-5 Euroanaesthesia 2023 Glasgow, Scotland https://iii.hm/1kvl 9-11 6th EuroAsia Conference Mumbai, India https://iii.hm/1kvm 12-14 41st Vicenza Course on AKI & CRRT Vicenza, Italy https://iii.hm/1kvn 14-16 Critical Care Reviews Meeting 2023 Belfast, United...

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