Critical care medicine
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2023
Multicenter Study Observational StudyObesity Paradox and Functional Outcomes in Sepsis: A Multicenter Prospective Study.
In Asian populations, the correlation between sepsis outcomes and body mass is unclear. A multicenter, prospective, observational study conducted between September 2019 and December 2020 evaluated obesity's effects on sepsis outcomes in a national cohort. ⋯ Obesity is associated with higher hospital survival and functional outcomes at discharge in Asian patients with sepsis.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2023
Multicenter Study Observational StudyRecognition of Critically Ill Patients by Acute Health Care Providers: A Multicenter Observational Study.
Although the Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) is increasingly being used in the acute care chain to recognize disease severity, its superiority compared with clinical gestalt remains unproven. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of medical caregivers and MEWS in predicting the development of critical illness. ⋯ For patients admitted to the ED by EMS, medical professionals can predict the development of critical illness within 3 days significantly better than the MEWS. Although MEWS is able to correctly predict those patients that become critically ill, its use leads to overestimation due to a substantial number of false positives.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2023
External Validation and Comparison of a General Ward Deterioration Index Between Diversely Different Health Systems.
Implementing a predictive analytic model in a new clinical environment is fraught with challenges. Dataset shifts such as differences in clinical practice, new data acquisition devices, or changes in the electronic health record (EHR) implementation mean that the input data seen by a model can differ significantly from the data it was trained on. Validating models at multiple institutions is therefore critical. Here, using retrospective data, we demonstrate how Predicting Intensive Care Transfers and other UnfoReseen Events (PICTURE), a deterioration index developed at a single academic medical center, generalizes to a second institution with significantly different patient population. ⋯ Important differences were observed between the two institutions, including data availability and demographic makeup. PICTURE was able to identify general ward patients at risk of deterioration at both hospitals with consistent performance (AUROC and AUPRC) and compared favorably to existing metrics.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2023
Fluid Overload Precedes and Masks Cryptic Kidney Injury in Pediatric Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.
Given the complex interrelatedness of fluid overload (FO), creatinine, acute kidney injury (AKI), and clinical outcomes, the association of AKI with poor outcomes in critically ill children may be underestimated due to definitions used. We aimed to disentangle these temporal relationships in a large cohort of children with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). ⋯ AKI was associated with higher mortality and fewer VFDs in pediatric ARDS, irrespective of timing. FO-adjusted creatinine captures a group of patients with Cryptic AKI with outcomes approaching those who meet AKI by traditional criteria. Increases in FO, FO-adjusted creatinine, and ANGPT2 occur prior to meeting conventional AKI criteria.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2023
Association of an Emergency Critical Care Program With Survival and Early Downgrade Among Critically Ill Medical Patients in the Emergency Department.
To determine whether implementation of an Emergency Critical Care Program (ECCP) is associated with improved survival and early downgrade of critically ill medical patients in the emergency department (ED). ⋯ The implementation of a novel ECCP was associated with a significant decrease in inhospital mortality among critically ill medical ED patients, with the greatest decrease observed in patients with intermediate severity of illness. Early ED downgrades also increased, but the difference was statistically significant only in the intermediate illness severity group.