Current opinion in critical care
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The high costs of critical illness make economic outcomes important adjuncts to clinical outcomes in intensive care unit research. Costs are markedly different than other clinical outcomes, both in their measurement and their interpretation. ⋯ When correctly measured and interpreted alongside measures of effectiveness, costs are a useful and important outcome in critical care research.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Oct 2006
ReviewMeasuring the quality of dying and death: methodological considerations and recent findings.
While the need to improve the quality of dying and death in critical settings has been well accepted, there is less agreement on which measures and criteria are best used to assess it. In this article, we present methodological considerations and recent findings that pertain to the measurement of the quality of dying and death. ⋯ These findings suggest a need to integrate both types of measures in research on the quality of end-of-life experiences. This integration, with attention to important methodological issues, may represent a significant step toward improving patients' experiences at the end-of-life.
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Staff satisfaction has not traditionally been included as an intensive care unit quality indicator. The process of providing intensive care may profoundly affect clinicians. Dysfunctional encounters with coworkers and ethical burdens may extract a considerable personal toll and affect work attitudes and performance. ⋯ Two common sources of staff dissatisfaction are examined. Improving staff satisfaction can improve unit performance, and serve to attract and retain quality clinicians.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Oct 2006
ReviewFungal infections and their treatment in the intensive care unit.
To describe and bring together recent development in the diagnosis and treatment of both community-acquired and opportunistic fungal infections in the intensive care unit. ⋯ Improved diagnostic tests and newer antifungal agents have been introduced, leading to earlier diagnosis and treatment.