T hey say that in the world of the intensive care unit (ICU), there is no night. It can be qualified as a lesser day, but not really as a night. The hustle and bustle may be slower, patient flow and activity may be less, conversations may be negligible, and the staff on duty may be limited, but patient care continues, alarms are in place, and the...
READ MOREIs the worst over? Have patients most at risk already been affected and died? Or has the SAR-CoV-2 virus mutated to a less severe form? Where exactly do we stand with COVID-19? U ndoubtedly, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a terrible experience - worse than expected for many worldwide. As we follow the COVID-19 situation, there is a tendency...
READ MORECOVID-19 poses several challenges and has made it difficult to measure ICU performance. Sticking to evidence-based interventions can go a long way in improving outcomes and resource utilisation. How it Started Taking care of a COVID-19 patient comes with an initial surprise: there is no standard mindset to guide the physician’s...
READ MORENassim Taleb, in his book, "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable," describes the term Black Swan as a rare, unknown event, which with hindsight is rationalised. Taleb talks about the human tendency to always find simplistic explanations for unknown events, what he calls the Black Swan theory. Is COVID-19 a black swan?...
READ MOREWe asked intensive care nurses how they experience medical alarms in the critical care context and how they can help ideate strategies for better alarm management. Our study revealed that excessive medical alarms are one of the sources of discomfort at the workspace for critical care nurses and nurses’ wellbeing is fundamental in providing better...
READ MOREWe review the decision-making processes during night shifts focusing on the perspective of residents and fellows. We explore nighttime decisions about extubations, ICU discharge, withholding/withdrawing and night shift cross-coverage. T aking a night shift in the ICU can be challenging, particularly from a resident/fellow perspective....
READ MOREThe impact of sleep deprivation and fatigue on patients and staff in the intensive care unit and how improved sleep, reduced noise disturbances, and more organised shifts could be beneficial for both patients and clinicians. T he World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that average daily sound levels in patient care areas should...
READ MOREThis article draws attention to the extensive range of tasks and the stresses and strains during night duty in intensive care units. To this end, the range of activities of night duty nursing staff is presented using the example of the Hannover Medical School. Night Service - An Important Service in the Multiple-Shift System In...
READ MOREThe lack of non-technical skills is associated with poor performance and patient harm in medicine. H uman Factor (HF) is an established scientific discipline that studies the interrelationship between humans, equipment, and work environment. Core aspects of HF, widely known as non-technical skills (NTS), include three dimensions...
READ MORESEPTEMBER 7-9 ERS 2020 - European Respiratory Society International Congress Virtual conference https://iii.hm/14a7 12-13 ESICM EuroAsia 2020 Hybrid conference Taipei, Taiwan https://iii.hm/14a8 14-15 BACCN 2020 - British Association of Critical Care Nurses Conference Virtual conference...
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