IMPORTANCE Nearly every US acute care hospital reports publicly on adherence to recommended processes of care for patients hospitalized with pneumonia. However, it remains uncertain how much performance of these process measures has improved over time or whether performance is associated with superior patient outcomes. OBJECTIVES To describe trends in processes of care, mortality, and readmis...

Introduction An increasing number of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) survivors develop psychological, cognitive and physical morbidities that may persist for years. The Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) includes these multidimensional impairments and is described in the literature for patients and family. The caregiver’s role is crucial in patient’s recovery after ICU, but is frequently overlooked ...

Author details Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, McMaster University, 501-25 Charlton Avenue East, Hamilton, ON L8N 1Y2, Canada. St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, McMaster University, 501-25 Charlton Avenue East, Hamilton, ON L8N 1Y2, Canada. Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care, Hamilton Health Science...

T inten sive care unit (ICU) can be a stressful and intimidating environment for critically ill patients. Behavioral disturbances in critically ill patients may be detrimental to the safety of patients and the nurses caring for these patients. These disturbances may manifest as ICU delirium. The development of ICU delirium can lead to dire consequences, such as an increased risk of 6-month mort...

Oral care for patients in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is important, but this is usually the responsibility of nurses without sufficient knowledge in oral care or comprehensive protocols to follow. The problems of maintaining oral care with oral intubation, performing oral assessment, guidelines for oral hygiene care, frequency of oral care needed, and suggested mouth care protocol ...

Muscle relaxants in intensive care unit (ICU) patients are predominantly administered to facilitate intubation. The adverse effect profile of succinylcholine is such that its use in the ICU must be considered obsolete. Suitable alternatives are the intermediately long-acting nondepolarizing relaxants, of which rocuronium is probably preferable.

Introduction Previous studies reported that patients in end-of-life (EOL) care may still receive aggressive treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) [1]. Despite the fact that less than 10% of Americans report that they would be willing to die in the hospital, up to 45% may ultimately do so. A significant fraction will perish in a critical care setting, which may represent a deviation from pr...

Introduction Prolonged stay in intensive care unit (ICU) after cardiac surgery may increase the long-term risk of readmission. Preoperative risk factors, surgical complications, infections and organ failure may need specific intensive support, increasing costs of reimbursement mainly for ICU interventions. Readmission costs over months after discharge may be a dependant of the need of intensive...

Health care systems today are complex, technically proficient, competitive, and market-driven. One outcome of this environment is the recent phenomenon in the health care field of "consumerism." Strong emphasis is placed on customer service, with organized efforts to understand, measure, and meet the needs of customers served. The purpose of this article is to describe the current understanding...

INTRODUCTION In any complex human system, human error is inevitable and shows that can't be eliminated by blaming wrong doers. So with the aim of improving Intensive Care Units (ICU) reliability in hospitals, this research tries to identify and analyze ICU's process failure modes at the point of systematic approach to errors. METHODS In this descriptive research, data was gathered qualitative...