Articles: intensive-care-units.
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Although patients readmitted to intensive care units (ICUs) typically have poor outcomes, ICU readmission rates have not been studied as a measure of hospital performance. ⋯ ICU patients who were subsequently readmitted have a higher risk of death and longer LOS after adjusting for severity of illness. However, readmission rates were not associated with severity-adjusted mortality or LOS. Those data indicate that ICU readmission may capture other aspects of hospital performance and may be complementary to these measures.
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Critical care medicine · Apr 1999
Practice Guideline GuidelineGuidelines for developing admission and discharge policies for the pediatric intensive care unit. Pediatric Section Task Force on Admission and Discharge Criteria, Society of Critical Care Medicine in conjunction with the American College of Critical Care Medicine and the Committee on Hospital Care of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
These guidelines were developed to provide a reference for preparing policies on admission and discharge for pediatric intensive care units (PICUs). They represent a consensus opinion of physicians, nurses, and allied health care professionals. By using this document as a framework for developing multidisciplinary admission and discharge policies, utilization of pediatric intensive care units can be optimized and patients can receive the level of care appropriate for their condition.
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Intensive care medicine · Apr 1999
Medication errors at the administration stage in an intensive care unit.
To assess the type, frequency and potential clinical significance of medication-administration errors. ⋯ According to this first observation-based study of medication administration errors in a European ICU, these errors were due to deficiencies in the overall organisation of the hospital medication track, in patient follow-up and in staff training.
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Clin Perform Qual Health Care · Apr 1999
The psychological and physiological effects of an intensive-care unit environment on healthy individuals.
The ideal inpatient environment would be one in which patient stress and anxiety are alleviated, but current inpatient hospital settings often do not seem to take this fact into consideration. To date, the effects of the actual hospital environment itself on patients is poorly understood. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the types of psychological and physiological changes that people undergo in response to being placed in an inpatient setting. ⋯ The findings of increased feelings of depression attributable solely to being in an ICU setting are inconsistent with the type of environment generally considered necessary to alleviate patient anxiety and tension in a critical-care-ward environment. The negative perception of this environment strongly suggests room for improvement. Efforts in this regard should focus on improving the five senses, particularly sight, sound, and taste within the ICU.
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To examine the correlation between the clinical diagnosis and autopsy findings in adult patients who died in an intensive care unit (ICU). To determine the rate of agreement of the basic and terminal causes of death and the types of errors in order to improve quality control of future care. ⋯ The rate of recognition of the basic cause was 66.7%, which is consistent with the literature, but the Class I error rate was higher than that reported in the literature.