Intensive care medicine
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Intensive care medicine · Nov 2018
Impact of a multifaceted prevention program on ventilator-associated pneumonia including selective oropharyngeal decontamination.
We describe the impact of a multifaceted program for decreasing ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) after implementing nine preventive measures, including selective oropharyngeal decontamination (SOD). ⋯ Our preventive program produced a sustained decrease in VAP incidence. SOD provides an additive value.
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Intensive care medicine · Nov 2018
ReviewVitamin therapy in critically ill patients: focus on thiamine, vitamin C, and vitamin D.
Abstract
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Intensive care medicine · Nov 2018
Healthcare-related costs in very elderly intensive care patients.
The long-term outcome of "very old intensive care unit patients" (VOPs; ≥ 80 years) is often disappointing. Little is known about the healthcare costs of these VOPs in comparison to younger ICU patients and the very elderly in the general population not admitted to the ICU. ⋯ VOPs required more healthcare resources in the year before, the year of and the year after ICU admission compared to younger ICU patients and the very elderly control population, except compared to the ICU 65-80 population in the year of ICU admission. Healthcare costs per day alive, however, are substantially higher for VOPs than for all other study groups in all three studied years.
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Abstract
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Intensive care medicine · Nov 2018
Challenges in assessing the burden of sepsis and understanding the inequalities of sepsis outcomes between National Health Systems: secular trends in sepsis and infection incidence and mortality in Germany.
Sepsis contributes considerably to global morbidity and mortality, while reasons for its increasing incidence remain unclear. We assessed risk adjusted secular trends in sepsis and infection epidemiology in Germany. ⋯ Sepsis and infection remain significant causes of hospital admission and death in Germany. Sepsis-related mortality is higher and has declined to a lesser degree than in other high-income countries. Although infection rates steadily increased, the observed annual increase of sepsis cases seems to result, to a considerable degree, from improved coding of sepsis.