Respiratory care
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Contemplating the future should be grounded in history. The rise of post-polio ICUs was inextricably related to mechanical ventilation. Critically ill patients who developed acute respiratory failure often had "congestive atelectasis" (ie, a term used to describe ARDS prior to 1967). ⋯ Therefore, it is imperative we understand the long-crooked path needed to reach the era of protective ventilation in order to avoid similar mistakes moving forward. The emerging era is as difficult to fathom as our current practices and technologies were to those practicing 60 years ago. This review explores the history of mechanical ventilation in treating ARDS, describes current protective ventilation strategies, and speculates how ARDS management might look 20 years from now.
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Review
An Introduction to the Clinical Application and Interpretation of Electrical Impedance Tomography.
Electrical impedance tomography is no longer a new technology, but its clinical use at the bedside is still in its primary stage. Global research has drastically increased since its commercial availability, and this has slowly begun to make its way into routine clinical bedside use in some areas of the world. This paper will provide the bedside clinician an introduction to the technology, how it is used, and the most common applications found in the literature.
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Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) and hookah smoking have gained tremendous popularity over the past decade. With the constantly evolving e-cigarette market and potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on users of these tobacco products, research is needed to assess the prevalence and safety of these devices as well as potential public health implications and cessation tools. For this year in review, PubMed was searched from January 2021-December 14, 2021, for articles related to e-cigarettes, vaping-related lung injury, and hookah smoking. ⋯ Hookah smoking has remained stable across the past several years and remains a primarily social activity among youth. New e-cigarette devices are constantly emerging, resulting in an increased demand to understand the safety of these devices. Additionally, hookah smoking continues to be a concerning public health issue with the increase in hookah bars and venues coupled with lack of policy regulations for hookah smoking.
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Interprofessional (IP) education is focused on learning about, from, and with other health care professionals in an effort to improve patient care and specifically patient safety. IP education does not diminish the importance of discipline-specific competencies but rather focuses on making the connections necessary to develop IP collaborative practice to improve the quality of health care. ⋯ The studies explored improving attitudes toward IP education, improving communication and collaboration skills, and improving patient safety. Review of the recently published IP education literature reveals opportunities for respiratory therapy educators, researchers, managers, and clinicians to discover ways to develop IP collaborative practice to ultimately have an important impact on the outcome of the patients we serve.