In-hospital transfer of the critically ill

Author(s):  
Lorna Eyre ◽  
Simon Whiteley

While focus has traditionally been on the planning, logistics, and outcome of inter-hospital transfers of the critically-ill patient, attention is turning to in-hospital transfers. Numerically, more in-hospital transfers occur and there is growing evidence that these are associated with a high incidence of adverse events, and increased morbidity and mortality. Appropriate planning, communication, and preparation are essential. Patients should be resuscitated and stabilized (optimized) prior to transfer, to prevent deterioration or instability during transfer. Endotracheal tubes and vascular access devices should be secure. The minimum recommended standards of monitoring should be applied. All drugs and equipment likely to be required during the transfer should be checked and available. Critically-ill patients should be accompanied by personnel with the appropriate knowledge skills and experience to carry out the transfer safely and to deal with any complications or incidents that arise.

Author(s):  
Laura Flutter ◽  
Christoph Melzer-Gartzke ◽  
Claudia Spies ◽  
Julian Bion

The safe transport of critically ill patients is recognized internationally as a key competency for clinicians working in anaesthesia, critical care, and emergency medicine. This includes inter- and intra-hospital, land, and air transport. The centralization of specialist services and growing demand for critical care beds have increased pressure on hospitals to provide transfer support for critically ill patients. A variety of systems have emerged to facilitate the increasing need for both inter- and intra-hospital transfer of patients, ranging from a national coordinated retrieval service to the ad hoc utilization of on-call teams. The potential for complications during all types of transfer has been well documented. In order to improve safety, a number of national guidelines and courses have been developed to provide a standardized approach to transfer medicine. This chapter reviews the current literature on the subject and provides a summary of best practice for the transfer of the critically ill patient.


Author(s):  
Yahya Shehabi ◽  
Wisam Al-Bassam ◽  
Adrian Pakavakis ◽  
Brendan Murfin ◽  
Belinda Howe

AbstractIn the critically ill patient, optimal pain and sedation management remains the cornerstone of achieving comfort, safety, and to facilitate complex life support interventions. Pain relief, using multimodal analgesia, is an integral component of any orchestrated approach to achieve clinically appropriate goals in critically ill patients. Sedative management, however, remains a significant challenge. Subsequent studies including most recent randomized trials have failed to provide strong evidence in favor of a sedative agent, a mode of sedation or ancillary protocols such as sedative interruption and sedative minimization. In addition, clinical practice guidelines, despite a comprehensive evaluation of relevant literature, have limitations when applied to individual patients. These limitations have been most apparent during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. As such, there is a need for a mindset shift to a practical and achievable sedation strategy, driven by patients' characteristics and individual patient needs, rather than one cocktail for all patients. In this review, we present key principles to achieve patient-and symptom-oriented optimal analgesia and sedation in the critically ill patients. Sedative intensity should be proportionate to care complexity with due consideration to an individual patient's modifiers. The use of multimodal analgesics, sedatives, and antipsychotics agents—that are easily titratable—reduces the overall quantum of sedatives and opioids, and reduces the risk of adverse events while maximizing clinical benefits. In addition, critical considerations regarding the choice of sedative agents should be given to factors such as age, medical versus operative diagnosis, and cardiovascular status. Specific populations such as trauma, neurological injury, and pregnancy should also be taken into account to maximize efficacy and reduce adverse events.


2000 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. K. Heyland

While many studies have reported that providing parenteral nutrition (PN) can change nutritional outcomes, there are limited data that demonstrate that PN influences clinically-important end points in critically-ill patients. The purpose of the present paper is to systematically review and critically appraise the literature to examine the relationship between PN and morbidity and mortality in the critically-ill patient. Studies comparing enteral nutrition (EN) with PN and studies comparing PN with no PN were reviewed. The results suggest that EN is associated with reduced infectious complications in some critically-ill subgroups. PN, on the other hand, is associated with increased morbidity and mortality in critically-ill patients. When nutritional support is indicated, EN should be used preferentially over PN. Further studies are needed to define the optimal timing and composition of PN in patients not tolerating sufficient EN. Strategies to optimize EN delivery and minimize PN utilization in critically-ill patients are indicated.


Author(s):  
Rajagopala Padmanabhan ◽  
Holt N. Murray

Emergency resuscitation and stabilization of the critically ill patient is a cornerstone of patient care during a rapid response team (RRT) call. The establishment of vascular access, along with airway, breathing, and circulation management is pivotal for the delivery of fluid, blood products, and life-saving medications that can directly impact the morbidity and mortality of critically ill patients. Unfortunately, peripheral venous access may be difficult, if not impossible, to get in some patients. In these, and other select situations, excess time spent attempting to insert a peripheral line can delay essential therapies. In this chapter, the indications, types, and methods of establishing vascular access will be reviewed briefly.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun Thompson ◽  
Erin Etoll

Adrenal disease in the critically ill patient can present many challenges for the intensivist. Besides primary, secondary, and tertiary adrenal insufficiency, a state known as critical care–related corticosteroid insufficiency (CIRCI) has been described. Adrenal insufficiency can pose many issues to the critically ill patient as it can decrease the patient’s ability to respond to the stress that critical illness presents to the human body. Proper recognition and diagnosis of adrenal insufficiency in the critically ill patient can be extremely important in the treatment of these patients and could be a lifesaving intervention if CIRCI is discovered. A less commonly encountered issue of adrenal disease lies in the area of adrenal hormone excess caused by a pheochromocytoma or extra-adrenal paragangliomas. These tumors can release large amounts of endogenous catecholamines that cause significant patient morbidity and mortality if not recognized early and treated appropriately. Although adrenal insufficiency and adrenal excess are less commonly encountered problems in critically ill patients, the recognition and treatment of these disease states can prevent the morbidity and mortality of critically ill patients that suffer from these disease states. This review contains 5 figures, 5 tables, and 89 references. Key words: adrenal insufficiency, hypothalamic-pituitary axis, critical illness–related corticosteroid insufficiency, pheochromocytoma, steroid replacement therapy


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (15) ◽  
pp. 3379
Author(s):  
Matthias Klingele ◽  
Lea Baerens

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication in critically ill patients with an incidence of up to 50% in intensive care patients. The mortality of patients with AKI requiring dialysis in the intensive care unit is up to 50%, especially in the context of sepsis. Different approaches have been undertaken to reduce this high mortality by changing modalities and techniques of renal replacement therapy: an early versus a late start of dialysis, high versus low dialysate flows, intermittent versus continuous dialysis, anticoagulation with citrate or heparin, the use of adsorber or special filters in case of sepsis. Although in smaller studies some of these approaches seemed to have a positive impact on the reduction of mortality, in larger studies these effects could not been reproduced. This raises the question of whether there exists any impact of renal replacement therapy on mortality in critically ill patients—beyond an undeniable impact on uremia, hyperkalemia and/or hypervolemia. Indeed, this is one of the essential challenges of a nephrologist within an interdisciplinary intensive care team: according to the individual situation of a critically ill patient the main indication of dialysis has to be identified and all parameters of dialysis have to be individually chosen with respect to the patient’s situation and targeting the main dialysis indication. Such an interdisciplinary and individual approach would probably be able to reduce mortality in critically ill patients with dialysis requiring AKI.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (S1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia van der Hoeven ◽  
◽  
Lorenzo Ball ◽  
Federico Constantino ◽  
David M. van Meenen ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Accumulated airway secretions in the endotracheal tube increase work of breathing and may favor airway colonization eventually leading to pneumonia. The aim of this preplanned substudy of the ‘Preventive Nebulization of Mucolytic Agents and Bronchodilating Drugs in Intubated and Ventilated Intensive Care Unit Patients trial’ (NEBULAE) was to compare the effect of routine vs on-demand nebulization of acetylcysteine with salbutamol on accumulation of secretions in endotracheal tubes in critically ill patients. Results In this single-center substudy of a national multicenter trial, patients were randomized to a strategy of routine nebulizations of acetylcysteine with salbutamol every 6 h until end of invasive ventilation, or to a strategy with on-demand nebulizations of acetylcysteine or salbutamol applied on strict clinical indications only. The primary endpoint, the maximum reduction in cross-sectional area (CSA) of the endotracheal tube was assessed with high-resolution computed tomography. Endotracheal tubes were collected from 72 patients, 36 from patients randomized to the routine nebulization strategy and 36 of patients randomized to the on-demand nebulization strategy. The maximum cross-sectional area (CSA) of the endotracheal tube was median 12 [6 to 15]% in tubes obtained from patients in the routine nebulization group, not different from median 9 [6 to 14]% in tubes obtained from patients in the on-demand nebulization group (P = 0.33). Conclusion In adult critically ill patients under invasive ventilation, routine nebulization of mucolytics and bronchodilators did not affect accumulation of airway secretions in the endotracheal tube. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02159196


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 897-909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Finocchio ◽  
William Coolidge ◽  
Thomas Johnson

The management of patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can be a complicated specialty within itself, made even more complex when there are so many unanswered questions regarding the care of critically ill patients with HIV. The lack of consensus on the use of antiretroviral medications in the critically ill patient population has contributed to an ongoing clinical debate among intensivists. This review focuses on the pharmacological complications of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in the intensive care setting, specifically the initiation of ART in patients newly diagnosed with HIV, immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS), continuation of ART in those who were on a complete regimen prior to intensive care unit admission, barriers of drug delivery alternatives, and drug-drug interactions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 54-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darren White ◽  
Scott C. Woller ◽  
Scott M. Stevens ◽  
Dave S. Collingridge ◽  
Vineet Chopra ◽  
...  

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