Articles: critical-care.
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Critical care clinics · Apr 1997
ReviewCritical care in Africa. North to south and the future with special reference to southern Africa.
The medical fraternity in Africa needs to ration resource allocation and aptly apply distributive justice. At present, pockets of Intensive Care Units are held together largely by individuals. Unless the correct assistance and support is provided to develop its vast potential, African Intensive Care will degenerate into primary health care.
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Intensive care medicine developed in Europe following the polio epidemic in Denmark in 1952 and is now a specialty in its own right. Across Europe differences exist between countries regarding unit size, policy, staffing, and patient demographics. ⋯ The United Kingdom appears to be similar to the countries of Southern Europe. Guidelines for training and structure are being developed in an attempt to create more uniformity and improve communication between units.
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Today patients that are otherwise stable may require mechanical ventilation for prolonged periods of time. The medical-surgical nurse may be expected to care for these patients in a setting outside the intensive care unit. Basic knowledge of the modes of ventilation, assessment, and troubleshooting of ventilators and assessment and care of the patient requiring mechanical ventilation are reviewed in this article.
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This article offers a brief discussion of some of the aspects of clinical and academic realities of critical and intensive care medicine in South America. Organizational efforts of collaborating physician and nursing intensivists from South American countries, Spain, and Portugal are outlined. Discussion includes the issues of funding and support of health care delivery of the critically ill, and some of the clinical syndromes not commonly seen in North America and Europe, but seen by intensivists in South America.
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Critical care clinics · Apr 1997
ReviewConsensus conferences in critical care medicine. Methodologies and impact.
Consensus conferences for the purposes of producing practice guidelines are occurring with increasing frequency both nationally and internationally. The international collaboration of national sciences in these efforts could have a dramatic impact on international standards of care. ⋯ It also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these methods, and how these may influence consensus guidelines. Finally, a brief overview of theoretically sound methods that can serve as benchmarks to evaluate current methods, and the bases for the development of improved methods is provided.