British journal of anaesthesia
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Life cycle assessment is increasingly used in the healthcare sector to facilitate more environmentally informed supply and medication use. A thorough life cycle assessment comparing the carbon impacts of 10 different single-use anaesthetic drug trays yielded surprising findings. Although life cycle assessment can guide decision-making, results must be interpreted clinically and in light of all available options, including eliminating unnecessary consumption altogether. Effective life cycle assessment in healthcare that is clinically applicable requires expertise from both environmental scientists and clinicians.
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Peripheral and truncal nerve blocks provide effective analgesia facilitating perioperative care. However, thresholds for clinically relevant effects remain undetermined and are left for clinicians to choose. These choices are fundamental for sample size calculations and interpretation of study results. This systematic scoping review aimed to create an overview of primary outcomes and anticipated effect sizes in randomised clinical trials assessing peripheral and truncal nerve blocks. ⋯ The presented outcomes and effect sizes from published trials on peripheral and truncal nerve block literature can be used in future trials to increase homogeneity in regional anaesthesia research.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Early noninvasive ventilation in general wards for acute respiratory failure: an international, multicentre, open-label, randomised trial.
The impact of noninvasive ventilation (NIV) managed outside the intensive care unit in patients with early acute respiratory failure remains unclear. We aimed to determine whether adding early NIV prevents the progression to severe respiratory failure. ⋯ NCT01572337.
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This narrative review evaluates the evidence regarding the protection offered by isolation gowns, approaches to imparting antimicrobial activity to gowns, and the environmental impacts of gown use, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a search of the Medline, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases for articles published between January 1, 2019 to February 20, 2024. We found that current standards pertaining to isolation gowns might be irrelevant to the protection of healthcare workers from pathogen transmission, as they focus primarily on fluid barrier resistance values that are not reflective of all transmission conditions in hospitals. ⋯ However, evidence of the effectiveness of such techniques in clinical settings is scarce. We advocate for standardised guidelines inclusive of common pathogen survival tests, comfort, and durability, which reflect the actual infection risks encountered by healthcare workers, to improve the safety and efficacy of isolation gowns in hospital settings. Further research into the clinical effectiveness of antimicrobial gowns and their long-term implications on the environment is also warranted.
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Most postoperative deaths occur on general wards, often linked to complications associated with untreated changes in vital signs. Monitoring in these units is typically intermittent checks each shift or maximally every 4-6 h, which misses prolonged periods of subtle changes in physiology that can herald a critical downstream event. Continuous monitoring of vital signs is therefore intuitively necessary for patient safety. ⋯ Evidence from before and after studies and retrospective propensity-matched data suggests that continuous ward monitoring decreases the risk of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, rapid response calls, and in some instances, mortality. This review summarises the history of general ward monitoring and describes future directions, including opportunities to implement these devices using artificial intelligence, pattern detection, and user-friendly interfaces. Pragmatic, well designed and appropriately powered trials, and real-world implementation data are necessary to make continuous monitoring standard practice at every hospital bed.