Current opinion in critical care
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Aug 2009
ReviewLinking the chain of survival: trauma as a traditional role model for multisystem trauma and brain injury.
Trauma systems are central in the care of trauma patients and the concept of 'Critical Care Cascade' matches the concept of the 'Trauma Systems'. Both concepts aim to offer a model of continuum care from prehospital assistance to ICU discharge that can have a significant impact on outcome. In spite of the trauma system concept maturity, many controversies still remain unresolved. This text will review some of the relevant literature related to prehospital and early hospital care of trauma patients. ⋯ Although there is a lack of definitive evidence to support many of the current recommendations for the acute care of trauma patients, the historical development of trauma systems, their long experience and even the existing controversies, can help to establish other critical pathways and can guide performance evaluations so necessary to improve outcomes.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Aug 2009
ReviewData based integration of critical illness and injury patient care from EMS to emergency department to intensive care unit.
Describe the challenges and opportunities for an integrated emergency care data system for the delivery and care of critical illness and injury. ⋯ Given its time-sensitive nature, new data systems and analytic methods will be required to examine the impact of emergency care. The linkage of emergency care data systems to outcomes based systems could create an ideal environment to improve patient morbidity and mortality in critical illness and injury.
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Perioperative cardiac complications remain a major area of concern as our surgical population increases in volume, age and frequency of comorbidity. A variety of strategies can be used to optimize patients and potentially reduce the incidence of these serious complications. ⋯ The complexity of a particular patient's physiologic responses to a wide variety of surgical procedures, which are undergoing constant technological refinement generally associated with lesser degrees of invasivity and stress make calculation of patients' perioperative risk very challenging. At the present time, adequate information is available for the clinician to screen patients with high-risk preoperative predictors, delay elective surgery for patients with recent intracoronary stents and continue chronic beta-blockade in appropriate patients. New large-scale database and subanalyses of major trials (e.g. Perioperative Ischemic Evaluation and Coronary Artery Revascularization Prophylaxis) should provide additional information to minimize perioperative cardiac risk.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Aug 2009
ReviewA systems approach to the early recognition and rapid administration of best practice therapy in sepsis and septic shock.
The early recognition and treatment of sepsis is paramount to reducing the mortality of this disease. However, unlike trauma, stroke or acute myocardial infarction, the initial signs of sepsis are subtle and easily missed by clinicians. Thus, hospital-based systems are needed to identify and triage patients who might be septic. This review focuses on the early diagnosis of sepsis and the implementation of a systems-based approach to help coordinate the identification and treatment of patients with this disease. ⋯ The institution of a rapid response system for the detection and treatment of septic shock requires a multidisciplinary approach. The infrastructure to create such a system must be facilitated by administrators and implemented by front-line healthcare providers. Continuous assessment of the outcome benefit of such a system by a quality assurance team is the final part of a truly integrated approach to sepsis treatment.
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To emphasize the evolving body of evidence that supports the need for a more seamless and interconnected continuum of patient care for a growing compendium of critical care conditions, starting in the prehospital and emergency department (ED) phases of management and continuing through ICU and rehabilitation services. ⋯ This article discusses the basis and rationale for the 'critical care cascade' concept, which contends that the optimal management of critically ill patients should be a continuum of care through the healthcare system. In the critical care cascade, each patient is enrolled on a 'pathway' of management based on their working diagnosis and each and every healthcare provider engaged along that continuum acts as part of a interconnected coordinated team that ensures a specific endpoint for these patients in a bundled manner that seamlessly extends from the prehospital and ED phases to the ICU and rehabilitation services.