Articles Tagged With: ICU
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Mayo Clinic Fights Drug Diversion, Reduces Propofol Waste to Zero
A propofol disposal initiative at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, reduced the number of full propofol bottles in an ICU waste bin to zero, successfully addressing drug diversion at the facility. -
Patients’ Goals During Long-Term Acute Care Hospital Stays
After a long-term acute care hospital stay, most patients will achieve goals of ventilator liberation, eating, drinking, and speaking, but many will not achieve independence in walking, grooming, toileting, or returning home.
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Social Isolation, Older Adults, and Mortality Post-ICU
Social isolation among older adults admitted to the ICU was associated with worse disability burden and higher one-year mortality rates after critical illness.
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Effect of COVID-19 on Patient Severity of Illness, Evaluating Hospital Performance
Patients with COVID-19 not only experience a higher mortality rate, but also a longer length of stay than other viral illness patients, even when adjusted for other patient factors such as age and comorbidities. Because of this, it is a challenge to evaluate hospital performance during the pandemic. -
Study Results Reveal How Hospitals Handled COVID-19’s First Wave
Healthcare systems’ responses to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic varied, but most canceled elective procedures to preserve ICU capacity and adapted staffing and physical space to prepare for patient surges, according to the results of a recent study. -
Case Management at the Entry Points: Ensuring Reimbursement Through Appropriate Surveillance
At a time when capacity and reimbursement are more important than ever, case managers play a key role in helping operations run smoothly. One way this happens is through monitoring the entry points of the hospital. These points include the emergency department, post-anesthesia care unit, direct admission to the units, or transfers from other facilities. This is not to say case managers should now add “security guard” to their extensive list of roles and tasks; rather, they are uniquely positioned to survey the whole picture, including how entry points are used. -
The Steep Costs of Operating Under Crisis Standards of Care
New data shine a harsh light on what can happen when hospitals become so overcrowded that they have to resort to crisis standards of care, a level of care where practice standards are relaxed under the strain of scarce resources.
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Hospital Reduces Alarms in Burn Center ICU
When a team set out to address alarm fatigue at a North Carolina burn center ICU, they found success with implementing new best practices that addressed some of the most common reasons for nuisance alarms. But they also found those wins can slip when staff changes bring new people who were not trained in the updated ways and new leadership that was not there for the initial effort. -
Hybrid ED/ICU Setting Cuts Critical Care Admission Rates
For patients and families, a combination ED-ICU means avoiding costly ICU admissions that do not align with care goals. For health systems, it means alleviating ICU capacity strain. -
Include Critical Care in Emergency Planning
Critical care often is overlooked in disaster planning. Risk managers should ensure this component is fully included. Critical care must ramp up quickly in a disaster, the same as the emergency department.