Browse Critical Care Articles by Topic

Sleep-promoting Interventions for Critically Ill Patients

ABSTRACT & COMMENTARY: Efforts have been made over the past couple of years to test and implement interventions in the ICU to promote sleep.

Clinical Practice Guidelines for Platelet Transfusion

The American Association of Blood Banks has six recommendations of varying strengths based on the availability of quality evidence.

Benefits of NIV in COPD Supported in Routine Clinical Practice

In a large cohort study, COPD patients managed with noninvasive ventilation had lower inpatient mortality compared to those managed with invasive ventilation.

Multicenter QI Project Results in a 23% Reduction in Medical Errors

Implementation of a quality improvement project focused on handoffs reduced medical errors by 23% and preventable adverse events by 30%.

Incidence of Constrictive Pericarditis

Since there is a lack of prospective data on the frequency of which constrictive pericarditis (CP) develops after acute pericarditis (AP), this group of investigators from Torino, Italy, conducted such a study.

Saddle Pulmonary Embolism: Is It the Same as 'Massive' PE?

Saddle pulmonary embolism was found in 37 of 680 patients with documented pulmonary embolism (PE) in this community hospital study. The great majority of these patients did well on standard therapy without thrombolytics, emphasizing that the radiographic finding of saddle PE should not by itself be equated with the much more serious clinical entity of massive PE.

Hospital Medicine Alert - Full December 2011 Issue in PDF

ACE Inhibitors/ARBs for Aortic Stenosis?

In severe symptomatic aortic stenosis (AS), surgical AVR improves mortality, but there is no medical therapy proven to slow progression of the valvular stenosis. Because AS is accompanied by left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy and fibrosis, and because the risk factors for AS are similar to those for coronary artery disease (CAD), it makes sense that blockade of the renin-angiotensin system may benefit patients with AS.

Daily Prompting on ICU Checklist Use Improves Patient Outcomes as Well as Processes of Care

In this study from a single medical ICU, prompting physicians to discuss all six items on a daily rounding checklist, as compared with the use of the same checklist without prompting, significantly improved several processes of care and appeared to decrease length of stay and mortality as well.

Risk of Perioperative MI in Patients with Stents Undergoing Surgery

Patients who have had percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with either bare metal stents (BMS) or drug-eluting stents (DES) require dual antiplatelet therapy until the stent struts are endothelialized. However, patients who have had prior PCI often need to undergo surgery.