Articles Tagged With: ICU
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Ethical Approaches for End-of-Life Communication with Non-English-Speaking ICU Patients
When caring for non-English-language-speaking intensive care unit patients, clinicians face all the same ethical issues as they do with any other patient, and some additional ones when cases involve patients who speak rarer languages.
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Surrogates’ Long-Term Distress Is Ethical Concern
Communication breakdowns between clinicians and surrogates in intensive care units may contribute to surrogates’ long-term psychological distress. However, there is no consensus on how to address this concern.
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Ethical Concerns if Surrogates Report Decisional Conflict
Surrogates face challenging decisions on life-sustaining treatments in the intensive care unit setting. Those with decisional conflict reported poor medical understanding, suboptimal support, and lack of clarity about patients’ treatment preferences.
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Another Step in the Journey to Combat Diagnostic Errors in Hospitalized Patients
Diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients who died or were transferred to the intensive care unit were common in this large retrospective, multicenter trial and frequently associated with patient harm. Problems with clinical assessment and ordering and interpreting tests were the most prevalent diagnostic process faults, with sepsis the diagnosis most associated with diagnostic error.
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Ethical End-of-Life Care Discussions in ICUs
Intensive care unit clinicians experience multiple barriers to quality end-of-life care conversations, a recent study found.
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Pediatric Boarding Increases Safety Concerns in EDs
Boarding is a common occurrence in most EDs. However, it has been studied more often in adult EDs than pediatric EDs.
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Ongoing Education, Outcomes-Focused Reviews Remain Key to Lasting Gains in Triage Accuracy
A recent investigation into the accuracy of ED triage decisions when using the most common triage system — the Emergency Severity Index — revealed that mistriage occurs in roughly one-third of patient encounters.
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Clinicians Need Help with Ethically Complex ICU Discharges
Clinicians are struggling with some intensive care unit (ICU) discharges that they believe potentially are unethical.
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Buprenorphine May Be an Effective Alternative to Full Opioids for Pain in the ICU
In a small, single-center, retrospective, propensity-matched cohort study examining enteral oxycodone vs. sublingual buprenorphine in a critically ill population, pain control was equivalent, indicating that sublingual buprenorphine may be an effective and appropriate alternative.
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ICU Delirium Linked to Post-Discharge Change in Cancer Treatment and Higher Mortality Among Cancer Patients
In this single-center, retrospective cohort study, intensive care unit (ICU) delirium was associated with a higher rate of cancer treatment modification, only partly due to worsening performance status, after discharge and higher one-year mortality.