Neurocritical care
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The goal of multimodality neuromonitoring is to provide continuous, real-time assessment of brain physiology to prevent, detect, and attenuate secondary brain injury. Clinical informatics deals with biomedical data, information, and knowledge including their acquisition, storage, retrieval, and optimal use for clinical decision-making. An electronic literature search was conducted for English language articles describing the use of informatics in the intensive care unit setting from January 1990 to August 2013. ⋯ Ergonomic data display that present results from analyses with clinical information in a sensible uncomplicated manner improve clinical decision-making. Collecting and archiving the highest resolution physiologic and phenotypic data in a comprehensive open format data warehouse is a crucial first step toward information management and two-way translational research for multimodality monitoring. The infrastructure required is largely the same as that needed for telemedicine intensive care applications, which under the right circumstances improves care quality while reducing cost.
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Pressure autoregulation is an important hemodynamic mechanism that protects the brain against inappropriate fluctuations in cerebral blood flow in the face of changing cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP). Static autoregulation represents how far cerebrovascular resistance changes when CPP varies, and dynamic autoregulation represents how fast these changes happen. Both have been monitored in the setting of neurocritical care to aid prognostication and contribute to individualizing CPP targets in patients. ⋯ Management of patients at or near this optimal level of CPP is associated with better outcomes in traumatic brain injury. Many of these studies have utilized the concept of the pressure reactivity index, a correlation coefficient between ICP and mean arterial pressure. While further studies are needed, these data suggest that monitoring of autoregulation could aid prognostication and may help identify optimal CPP levels in individual patients.
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Transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD) has been used as a confirmatory test for the diagnosis of brain death (BD), but may be inaccurate in patients with a skull defect or extraventricular drain (EVD). ⋯ We caution against the use of TCD to confirm the diagnosis of BD in the presence of a skull defect or EVD.
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There is an increased focus on evaluating processes of care, particularly in the high acuity and cost environment of intensive care. Evaluation of neurocritical-specific care and evidence-based protocol implementation are needed to effectively determine optimal processes of care and effect on patient outcomes. General quality measures to evaluate intensive care unit (ICU) processes of care have been proposed; however, applicability of these measures in neurocritical care populations has not been established. ⋯ Similarly, implementation of evidence-based protocol-directed care can enhance outcome in the neurocritical care population. There is significant evidence to support suggested quality indicators for the general ICU population, but limited research regarding specific use in neurocritical care. Quality indices for neurocritical care have been proposed; however, additional research is needed to further validate measures.
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Anemia and bleeding are paramount concerns in neurocritical care and often relate to the severity of intracranial hemorrhage. Anemia is generally associated with worse outcomes, and efforts to minimize anemia through reduced volume of blood sampled are encouraged. ⋯ How best to monitor the effect of platelet transfusion or platelet-activating therapy is not well studied. For patients known to take novel oral anticoagulants, drug-specific coagulation tests before neurosurgical intervention are prudent.