Critical care medicine
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Critical care medicine · Nov 2023
Fibrotic-Like Pulmonary Radiographic Patterns Are Not Associated With Adverse Outcomes in COVID-19 Chronic Critical Illness.
Pulmonary fibrosis is a feared complication of COVID-19. To characterize the risks and outcomes associated with fibrotic-like radiographic abnormalities in patients with COVID-19-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and chronic critical illness. ⋯ Approximately half of adults with COVID-19-associated chronic critical illness have fibrotic-like patterns that are associated with higher interleukin-6 levels at intubation. Fibrotic-like patterns are not associated with longer time to liberation from mechanical ventilation or worse 6-month survival.
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Critical care medicine · Nov 2023
Asynchrony Injures Lung and Diaphragm in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.
Patient-ventilator asynchrony is often observed during mechanical ventilation and is associated with higher mortality. We hypothesized that patient-ventilator asynchrony causes lung and diaphragm injury and dysfunction. ⋯ Breath stacking caused lung and diaphragm injury, whereas reverse triggering caused diaphragm injury. Thus, careful monitoring and management of patient-ventilator asynchrony may be important to minimize lung and diaphragm injury from spontaneous breathing in ARDS.
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Critical care medicine · Nov 2023
The Relationship Between Hospital Capability and Mortality in Sepsis: Development of a Sepsis-Related Hospital Capability Index.
Regionalized sepsis care could improve sepsis outcomes by facilitating the interhospital transfer of patients to higher-capability hospitals. There are no measures of sepsis capability to guide the identification of such hospitals, although hospital case volume of sepsis has been used as a proxy. We evaluated the performance of a novel hospital sepsis-related capability (SRC) index as compared with sepsis case volume. ⋯ The SRC score has face validity for capability-based groupings of hospitals. Sepsis care may already be de facto regionalized at high-capability hospitals. Low-capability hospitals may have become more adept at treating less complicated sepsis.
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Critical care medicine · Nov 2023
Observational StudyTranslating Policy to Practice: An Association Between Medicare Access and Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act Implementation and Palliative Care Consultations and Perioperative Mortality in Critical Care.
To evaluate the 30-day postoperative mortality and palliative care consultations in patients that underwent surgical procedures in the United States before and after Medicare Access and Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (MACRA) implementation. ⋯ We did not observe an increase in postoperative mortality after POD 30 before or after MACRA implementation. However, palliative care use markedly increased after POD 30. These findings should be considered hypothesis-generating because of several confounders.