Although most critically ill patients require only short periods of respiratory support, a minority require prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV).
Supported by robust data from numerous clinical trials, low-tidal-volume ventilation is now standard-of-care in managing patients with acute lung injury (ALI) or the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
Participants in this study were 100 patients/surrogates and their physicians in a 26-bed medical ICU located in an academic medical center.
Thus, most hospitals in my county have limited on-site or in-house behavioral or psychiatric resources; most patients are assessed in the emergency department (ED) and then transferred to mental health crisis centers or, if available, inpatient psychiatric units. The most common question by the accepting provider is, "Is this patient medically cleared?"
