this study aimed to estimate the rate of pressure ulcers in intensive care units (icus) and medical and surgical wards of iranian hospitals and compare the performance of methods of medical record review as well as direct observation for their detection.the research team visited 308 patients in medical and surgical wards of hospitals affiliated with tehran university of medical sciences and a f...

Background and aims: The concept and meaning of futile care depends on the existing culture, values,religion, beliefs, medical achievements, and emotional status of a country. In Iran, futile care hasbecome a challenge for nurses working in intensive care units (ICUs). Considering the differencesobserved in defining futile care based on the patients’ conditions and the nurses’...

CONTEXT Because of evidence suggesting that outcomes are better in "intensivist-model" intensive care units (ICUs), the Leapfrog Group's hospital safety standards propose that ICUs be managed by critical care physicians (intensivists) who work exclusively in the ICU. COUNT Number of lives saved annually in the United States. CALCULATION Lives saved = (number of ICU admissions x in-hospital ...

OBJECTIVE To describe rounding practices in Canadian adult Intensive Care Units (ICU) and identify opportunities for improvement. DESIGN Mixed methods design. Cross sectional survey of Canadian Adult ICUs (n = 180) with purposefully sampled follow-up interviews (n = 7). MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Medical directors representing 111 ICUs (62%) participated in the survey. Rounding practices...

AIMS Cardiac arrest is a major health concern worldwide accounting for 375,000 cases per year in Europe with a survival rate of <10%. Therapeutic hypothermia has been shown to improve patients' neurological outcome and is recommended by scientific societies. Despite these guidelines, different surveys report a heterogeneous application of this treatment. The aim of the present study was to eval...

Intensive care is slowly being recognized as a separate medical specialization. Physicians, called intensivists, are being specially trained to manage intensive care units (ICUs) and provide focused, high quality care to critically ill patients. However, these ICUs were traditionally managed by primary physicians who used to admit patients in ICUs under their own care. The presence of specially...

BACKGROUND Little is known about whether recommended strategies to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) are being implemented in intensive care units (ICU) in the United States. OBJECTIVES Our objectives were to describe the presence of and adherence to CAUTI prevention policies in ICUs, to identify variations in policies based on organizational characteristics, and to ...