ICU

A ‘Sky(I)CU’ for the world travel champions

In 2011, among Germany’s 82 million people 69.5 million holiday trips were made, each lasting at least five days; 47.8 million (68.8%) of these were abroad.

Organ donation

Rumour had it for a while, and many found out when the bomb was finally dropped at, of all places, the Congress of the International Transplantation Society, held in Berlin this July – the waiting list for donor organs in the database of the Eurotransplant Foundation had been manipulated.

England creates multiple Major Trauma Centres

Around 20,000 people become major trauma victims every year in England. Studies have shown that Major Trauma Centres (MTCs) with dedicated personnel and specialist equipment save more lives and reduce the risk of serious disability. Thus, to offer such victims better chances of survival, a new network of 22 MTCs has been established across the country to provide centralised care, with experts…

Safer sleep, safer sugar

Ensuring the safety of hospitalised patients is vital – and brought under a particularly strong focus in anaesthesiology. Launched in 2010, the Helsinki Declaration provided a further boost. Report: Holger Zorn

Neonatologists recommend volume-targeted ventilation for premature babies

Volume-targeted ventilated premature babies have a higher survival rate and suffer less ventilation-related lung damage – this is the result of a survey amongst international neonatologists.

Breathing space

If the hopes of inventors are to be believed, in around 20 years’ time there will be ‘real artificial lungs -- for now the endpoint of a history that began 84 years ago with the invention of the iron lung. Until then, non-invasive and invasive mechanical respiration will continue to dominate the hospital, complemented by extracorporeal procedures for blood oxygenation and decarbonisation,…

Sepsis – a Global Medical Emergency

The Global Sepsis Alliance (GSA) is urging healthcare providers, patients and policymakers worldwide to treat sepsis as a medical emergency. “Tens of millions of people die from sepsis each year, making it the likely leading cause of death worldwide. Sepsis kills regardless of age, ethnicity, location and access to care,” said Konrad Reinhart, M.D., Chairman of the GSA and director of the…

Centralising critical care to save funds

Professor Timothy Evans, a leading intensive care specialist believes regionalising critical care into major centres across England and Wales is an ‘inevitable step’ as the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) seeks to make the best use of resources, Mark Nicholls reports.

MRI will improve the treatment of wake-up strokes

Neurointensivists need to act quickly and carefully – as well as consider later complications or the psychological impact on stroke victims. This potentially debilitating disease was a central discussion among 1,400 participants from 10 countries during the three-day 29th Annual Conference of Neurointensive Medicine (ANIM), an event hosted in January by The German Society for Neuro-Intensive…

The 40th International Congress of Intensive Care Medicine

Held at La Defense in January, the International Congress of Intensive Care Medicine, sponsored by Société de Réanimation de Langue Française (SRLF) – the French Society for Intensive Care – is, with more than 3,500 participants, one of the major intensive care meetings to take place in 2012, Jane Mac Dougall reports.

Precision scales save lives

There are times when the timely detection of a patient’s weight change could save a life. Regular weight checks can reveal an unexplained loss of fluids due to diarrhoea, vomiting and third-degree burns in time to prevent complications.

Better safe than sorry

Five recommendations to prevent central venous catheter-related infections. Catheter-related bloodstream infections are the third frequent infection in the intensive care unit (ICU) after pneumonia and peritonitis worldwide. The incidence of CVC infections lies between 1-4 for 1,000 catheterdays. This means for the USA, as an example, that more than five million patients annually need a central…

ISICEM 2012: So much to discuss…

When the ISICEM 2012 opens this March, Brussels will again experience a healthy influx of medical specialists intent on hearing the most recent, clinically relevant developments in research, therapy and management of the critically ill.

IT helps ensure patient safety in the ICU – and beyond

Integrated information management reduces risks and cuts cost, Finn Snyder reports. Intensive care units (ICUs) are vital in healthcare. ICUs in US hospitals, for example, treat six million of the sickest and oldest patients annually, according to a document recently published for the Massachusetts Technology Park Corporation, which states that choices about how to manage them carry high stakes:

Ambulance paramedics switch to on the spot electronic reporting

A British ambulance service has successfully made the transition from paperbased patient reporting to a fully electronic system enabling paramedics to capture patient data at the scene of an incident and transmit it to the receiving hospital ahead of arrival at the Accident and Emergency (A&E) unit.

Traumatic brain injury: The silent epidemic

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the world’s biggest public health problems. In the USA, for example, about 1.7 million people sustain TBI every year, costing healthcare $76.5 billion. Yet, the public knows little of the significance of TBI and also it once received the nickname ‘silent epidemic’ by the American Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Remote blood gas data management

The 500-bed Warrington Hospital in the north-west of England has introduced rapid, accurate POCT to its wards. The hospital was one of the first in the UK to install Siemens RAPIDLab 1200 Blood Gas Analyzers and the RAPIDComm v3.0 Data Management System. More recently, it has installed Clinitek Status Connect systems to further enhance its operations.

Dysglycaemia

Dysglycaemia is a new term in critical care that recognises the vital importance for glucose monitoring of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). Beyond the clinical consensus over this word for grouping critically ill patients with hyperglycaemia, hypoglycaemia or high blood sugar, there is no broad agreement on how best to manage these patients. Report: John Brosky.

Interventional radiology in the trauma unit

Traumatic injuries result in 800,00 deaths per year in Europe, making this one of the leading causes of mortality and the primary cause of death in patients aged 45 years old or younger. Depending on the type and severity of injury, usually trauma patients are treated by a team of experts from different disciplines.

Touch screen cardiopulmonary diagnostics

Schiller reports that its new range of touch screen ECG systems combines precision performance and attractive ergonomics. With a touch to the large, high-resolution colour display, 12-lead ECGs and pulmonary function tests can be recorded, selected and printed in seconds.

Of mounting importance

They are rarely noticed but nevertheless they carry a lot of weight in a hospital: intelligent mounting solutions for medical equipment and monitors. While the eyes of physicians, nurses and patients alike tend to be fixed on the device, hardly anybody ever looks at the way, the device is fixed to the wall or the ceiling. The engineers of CIM med, based in Munich, Germany, however did have a…

ICU