Search Tag: intensive care unit
Promoting Family Engagement in the ICU
2019 23 Nov
The environment in an intensive care unit can often be intimidating for families and visitors. In addition, the machines, beeps, and all the alarms make the ICU appear foreboding. The ICU staff also have to follow rigid guidelines about patient visiting hours, allowing some visitors entry while denying others. All in all, many families and loved ones... Read more
Risk Factors for Frailty and Death in the ICU
2019 07 Nov
The population continues to age, and life expectancy continues to increase. While most elderly patients can be managed in the general ward, a certain percentage will need ICU admission. The number of elderly people admitted to the critical care unit has been increasing consistently. However, age alone is not a key factor for admission to the ICU.... Read more
Intensivist Preferences for Patient Admission to ICU
2019 30 Oct
When patients present to the emergency room and need admission, they are first evaluated by the physician. Patients who are stable but need admission are usually admitted to the general medical floor. Those who are unstable, very old, or very young or those with numerous comorbidities are usually admitted to the intensive care unit. The ICU is... Read more
End-of-Life Practices in European ICUs - From 1999 to 2016
2019 12 Oct
In intensive care units, death often occurs after a decision to limit life-sustaining interventions. But there are significant differences in these practices within and between different countries and regions. Over the past decade or so, there have been significant changes in European laws, recommendations, guidelines, and attitudes regarding... Read more
What Did We Learn From Nutritional Monitoring?
2019 26 Sep
Monitoring nutrition in the ICU is significantly different from monitoring other activities. For example, if we look at haemodynamics, it is pretty easy. We can monitor blood pressure, cardiac output etc. We can deliver a drug and look at its effect to see if it works or not, and, if it doesn’t, we can simply change the drug. These are simple activities... Read more
Reducing Risks and Generating Economic Benefits
2019 26 Aug
Did you know that IV filtration in an intensive care unit (ICU) could help to reduce risks and generate economic benefits? Introduction Intravenous administration of fluids and drugs is an important part of patient care for the critically ill. However, the contamination of infusion solutions by particles is a largely unknown and underestimated... Read more
Seven steps to design, procure, implement and maintain a Clinical Information System for your ICU
2019 30 May
How to design, procure, test, parameterise, implement and maintain a Clinical Information System for an intensive care unit. Introduction e-Health applications, in our case Clinical Information Systems (CIS) or Patient Data Management Systems (PDMS), are taking medicine by storm, and intensive care is not an exception. Ensuring delivery... Read more
Noise in the intensive care unit: where does it come from and what can you do about it?
2019 30 May
Practical measures and interventions to reduce noise levels in the ICU and to improve the patient experience. The intensive care unit (ICU) is known to be noisy and is getting louder (Busch-Vishniac et al. 2007). Despite several trials, no interventions have been able to reduce noise levels by a meaningful amount (Li et al. 2011; Boyko... Read more
Innovation
2019 14 Mar
The burden of critical illness is a major concern in healthcare. This burden is expected to continue to increase as our population ages. Our cover story Innovation highlights the growing problem of critical illness and the need to develop improved practices and implement new and advanced solutions to meet the expected challenges. Our contributors... Read more