The admission electrocardiogram (ECG) was studied in 898 patients admitted to a coronary care unit over two years. The diagnosis made from this tracing was compared with that made at the end of the patient's stay. About half the cases of recent myocardial infarct were diagnosed from the admission ECG, but accuracy rose to 83% with serial ECG's in the unit. The ECG is important but not entirely ...

In 2013, a before-and-after intervention study was conducted to evaluate the effect 24-hour intensivist coverage on length of stay and rates of catheter-associated urinary tract infection, central-line associated blood stream infection, and ventilator-associated events. Intensivist coverage for 24 hours did not decrease length of stay or result in a decrease in any specific infection rate.

Time intervals between the onset of the presenting symptom (chest pain) and arrival in a coronary care unit were studied for 221 admissions arranged by conventional means. The median figure for "patient delay" was 60 minutes, for "general-practitioner delay" 20 minutes, for "ambulance delay" 30 minutes, and for "transit delay" 30 minutes. The median "total delay" was three hours 30 minutes.Only...

Methods 31 patient diaries for admissions longer than 72 hours were included in the study. Patients with more than 1 ICU stay during their hospital admission were included independently. Diaries were handwritten by nurses and electronically transcribed, the analysis framework follows a previous ICU study documented in the literature [2]. Each diary was divided and coded into three phases, crisi...

Even in the information-rich environment of hospitals, health-care providers face challenges in addressing their various information needs. Through a study of a patient-care team in a tertiary care Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU), we expanded our understanding of health-care providers' information needs in two important ways. First, the study focused on a patient-care team instead of indivi...

Admissions to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) generate needs among relatives, which sometimes do not receive appropriate care. This study aimed at describing a support group (SG) that embraces the relatives of patients admitted to ICU and to evaluate its effectiveness in meeting their needs of information and emotional support. This descriptive study was performed in 2006 in a Hospital of Goiânia...

BACKGROUND The ABCDE bundle incorporates multidisciplinary measures to improve and/or preserve patients' physical, functional, and neurocognitive status through awakening and breathing coordination, delirium prevention and management, and early physical mobility. OBJECTIVES To quantify the prevalence and duration of delirium in patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) before and after implem...

Tetanus is still a public health problem in developing countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo. The objective of this study was to determine the prognosis of patients with tetanus admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Provincial Hospital Jason Sendwe, Lubumbashi, DR Congo. This is a descriptive study which collected information from registers and medical records of patients ...