Journal of critical care
-
Journal of critical care · Feb 2012
Organizational and safety culture in Canadian intensive care units: relationship to size of intensive care unit and physician management model.
The objectives of this study are to describe organizational and safety culture in Canadian intensive care units (ICUs), to correlate culture with the number of beds and physician management model in each ICU, and to correlate organizational culture and safety culture. ⋯ Differences in perceptions between staff in larger and smaller ICUs highlight the importance of teamwork across units in larger ICUs.
-
Research purposes were to document the symptoms characteristic of neonates during their last week of life and to describe the activities undertaken in nursing care of dying neonates in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). ⋯ Research findings suggest that the application of palliative care paradigm and more aggressive comfort care to manage signs in NICU might be beneficial to dying infants.
-
Journal of critical care · Feb 2012
Comparative StudyComparison of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) rates between different ICUs: Implications of a zero VAP rate.
Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Measures to reduce the incidence of VAP have resulted in institutions reporting a zero or near-zero VAP rates. The implications of zero VAP rates are unclear. This study was done to compare outcomes between two intensive care units (ICU) with one of them reporting a zero VAP rate. ⋯ During comparisons of VAP rate between institutions, a zero VAP rate needs to be considered in the context of overall ventilator days, mean durations of ventilator stay and ICU mortality.
-
Journal of critical care · Feb 2012
Short-term prognosis of critically ill surgical patients: the impact of duration of invasive organ support therapies.
We wanted to identify the importance of the duration of invasive ventilation and of renal replacement therapy for short-term prognosis of surgical patients treated in an intensive care unit (ICU). ⋯ Prolonged duration of invasive ventilation but not of renal replacement therapy is inversely related to short-term survival.
-
Journal of critical care · Feb 2012
Effect of an antibiotic algorithm on the adequacy of empiric antibiotic therapy given by a medical emergency team.
Delayed administration of effective antimicrobial therapy increases mortality in patients with septic shock. Empiric antibiotic selection in this setting can be inaccurate. The objective of this study was to determine whether an antibiotic algorithm (AA) tailored to institutional resistance patterns improves the adequacy of antimicrobial therapy. ⋯ The use of an AA significantly improves the adequacy of empiric antimicrobial therapy.