Critical Care Alert – June 1, 2012

June 1, 2012

• Improving Patient Safety During Postoperative Handoffs

  A patient handover, or handoff, in health care can be defined as the transfer of information, professional responsibility, and accountability between individuals and teams. Handoffs represent a time of particular patient vulnerability to complications and medical errors, and with the current focus on safety an increasing amount of attention has been devoted to characterizing and improving them.

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• Audit Feedback Reduced Broad-Spectrum Antibiotic Use and Incidence of C. difficile Infections

  This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of a formal audit and feedback program targeted at broad-spectrum antibiotic use in critically ill patients.

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• ICU Privacy Curtains are Contaminated with Potentially Pathogenic Bacteria

  Investigators at the University of Iowa hospital collected culture samples from vinyl privacy curtains at 30 inpatient locations, half of them in the medical and surgical ICUs. Curtains at each location were sampled twice weekly.

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• Systemic Antifungal Therapy in ICU Patients Without Documented Invasive Fungal Infection

  Investigators representing three professional societies carried out a point-prevalence assessment of the use of systemic antifungal therapy (SAT) in patients in ICUs in France and Belgium on December 8, 2008.

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• Hospital Cultural and Organizational Characteristics Correlate with Important Mortality Differences in Managing Acute Myocardial Infarction

  Great strides have been made over the last couple of decades in the management of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and widespread implementation of such interventions as aspirin, beta-blockers, and prompt reperfusion therapy has contributed to substantially reduced mortality from this leading killer.

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• Pharmacology Update: Critical Drug Shortages Are on the Rise

  In this issue: Drug shortages; metformin and cancer prevention; migraine prevention guidelines; and FDA actions.

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• Clinical Briefs in Primary Care supplement

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