Revue des maladies respiratoires
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Mechanical ventilation induces cyclic changes in left ventricular stroke volume. These variations are mainly related to the expiratory decrease in left ventricular preload following the inspiratory decrease in right ventricular filling and ejection. ⋯ At the bedside, the respiratory changes in left ventricular stroke volume can be assessed by the analysis of the arterial pressure (arterial catheter) or aortic blood velocity (echocardiography) wave forms. The respiratory changes in arterial pressure and in aortic blood velocity have been shown to be accurate predictors of fluid responsiveness and of the hemodynamic effects of positive end-expiratory pressure.
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Audits should be conducted in respiratory intensive care units (ICU) as in all other ICU using patient-specific indicators to assess medical activity and quality of care. However, other criteria, such as those developed by the SRLF ("Société de Réanimation de Langue Française"), should also be used. These criteria include the description of the patients previous health status, prognosis of underlying diseases, the SAPS I or SAPS II severity score at admission, the omega or TISS therapeutic scores, and the PRN index of health care burden. ⋯ The French Society of Lung Disease (SPLF) has proposed specific standards of quality for respiratory ICU. We present here examples issuing for the ICU of the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Paris. The results show that non-specific national indicators, in combination with other indicators specific for respiratory ICU, provide appropriate audit data.