Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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Observational Study
Early prediction of serious infections in febrile infants incorporating heart rate variability in an emergency department: a pilot study.
Early differentiation of febrile young infants with from those without serious infections (SIs) remains a diagnostic challenge. We sought to (1) compare vital signs and heart rate variability (HRV) parameters between febrile infants with versus without SIs, (2) assess the performance of HRV and vital signs with reference to current triage tools and (3) compare HRV and vital signs to HRV, vital signs and blood biomarkers, when predicting for the presence of SIs. ⋯ An exploratory prediction model incorporating HRV and biomarkers improved prediction of SIs. Further research is needed to assess if HRV can identify which young febrile infants have an SI at ED triage.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in critically unwell patients with type 1 respiratory failure. In an attempt to reduce the number of patients requiring mechanical ventilation, prone positioning (PP) of non-intubated patients has been added to many hospital guidelines around the world. We set out to conduct a systematic review of the evidence relating to PP in the non-intubated patient with type 1 respiratory failure secondary to COVID-19 and other causes. ⋯ No high-quality randomised controlled trials were found and thus evidence in relation to PP as a treatment for non-intubated patients with type 1 respiratory failure is lacking.