Respiratory care
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Multicenter Study
Feasibility of a Multi-Center Respiratory Therapist Endotracheal Intubation Study.
Respiratory therapists (RTs) have historically performed safe and effective intubations, yet there are limited multi-center data assessing their intubation performance. Multi-center data can be used to compare RT intubation performance to that of other professions and identify quality improvement opportunities at hospitals where RTs perform intubation. We aimed to explore the feasibility of a multi-center collaborative to evaluate RT intubation outcomes. ⋯ A collaborative examining RTs intubation performance was successfully initiated at 2 separate facilities. Intubations performed by RTs had a high success rate, with AE rates comparable to published results from other types of providers.
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Review
Getting Started in Research: The Role of Mentorship, Forming the Team, and Developing a Process.
Research is critical to providing scientifically sound treatments in respiratory care. Getting started in research requires mentorship to develop the skills required for success. ⋯ Supporting data demonstrate that having a formal process for research can improve the quality of research produced by departments. This article will review how to get started in research, including the importance of mentorship, roles that can be filled by team members, and how to develop a process for research.
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Multicenter Study Observational Study
Work of Breathing During Proportional Assist Ventilation as a Predictor of Extubation Failure.
Despite decades of research on predictors of extubation success, use of ventilatory support after extubation is common and 10-20% of patients require re-intubation. Proportional assist ventilation (PAV) mode automatically calculates estimated total work of breathing (total WOB). Here, we assessed the performance of total WOB to predict extubation failure in invasively ventilated subjects. ⋯ The discriminative performance of a PAV-derived total WOB value to predict extubation failure was good, indicating total WOB may represent an adjunctive tool for assessing extubation readiness. However, these results should be interpreted as preliminary, with specific thresholds of PAV-derived total WOB requiring further investigation in a large multi-center study.