Walking Home From The ICU Episode 148: The History and True Mission of the ABCDEF Bundle
How did the ABCDEF bundle come to be and what is its true objective? What barriers are causing the ICU community to fall short of full compliance with the bundle and what is the future of the ABCDEF bundle? Michele Balas, PhD, RN shares with us her insights as one of the founders of the
The Financial Benefits of the ABCDEF Bundle
The ABCDEF Bundle is easily the best tool we have to improve patient care and outcomes in the ICU. If you know anything about these evidence-based practices, you’re probably well aware that they can decrease length of stay and readmissions, and reduce patients’ chances of dying, while making it more likely that they’ll return to
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How do hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) occur in the ICU and why is the ABCDEF bundle such a powerful tool to prevent HAPIs? How do HAPIs impact healthcare costs, staff workload, patient quality of life, and overall survival? Wound Care Karen joins us in this episode to explore the crisis of hospital-acquired pressure injuries in
Walking Home From The ICU Episode 146: Success Stories from ICU Revolutionists
Individuals and teams are transforming patient outcomes through the adaptation of the ABCDEF bundle. Hear a compilation of their inspiring successes in this episode! Episode Transcription The past few episodes have been heavy. Obviously we have to address the challenges we face and the damage being done to patients. Yet, we also need to focus
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Walking Home From The ICU Episode 145: The Trauma of Sedation and Immobility in Families in the ICU
Sedation and immobility impact more than patient outcomes in the ICU. Family members also suffer the isolation, burden, trauma, and loss from sedation and immobility in and after the ICU. Families are also at risk of developing post-ICU syndrome themselves. Nonetheless, they are left unprepared to care for their loved ones who are suffering the
Over the last few years I have become aware of the PICS (post-intensive care syndrome) condition and the very serious negative impact that it has on our ICU survivors. I have become much more aware of the potential negative impact of anxiety, depression, PTSD and cognitive dysfunction. Many patients whom we consider saves in the sense they leave the ICU alive have many issues that most people would consider far from a successful experience. Their lives are often dramatically changed in a very negative fashion.
I am a professor of medicine and have been an ICU director for over forty years. What I find very disturbing in my own experience and that of many other intensivists is that this outcome is generally considered acceptable; the patient survived and will get better with time. We have little access to these patients and almost zero information about their condition unless they are unfortunate enough to return to our ICUs. Very few of us have a PICS clinic where we would have a chance to better understand the challenges that some of our patients encounter, and there are very few systems in place to provide feedback to us as ICU clinicians. Therefore, we are blissfully ignorant of the many challenges that a substantial number of our survivors encounter. This is a major problem. The vast majority of ICU survivors and their families will experience cognitive, emotional and physical symptoms which often have devastating impacts on their lives. At this time, with PICS clinics being a rarity, there is no reasonable mechanism for intensivists to have a solid perspective on the frequency and severity of this condition.
How patients and their families are treated in the ICU often has a major impact on how the patient and families survive post discharge. It is generally agreed that most sedation infusions, particularly benzodiazepines, frequently have higher incidences of delirium and post-discharge dysfunction. There are a few hospitals in this country where sedative infusions are rarely used and the incidence of the complications described above are dramatically decreased. I have visited one of these hospitals and was amazed to see how effectively patients on maximum ventilator support can be managed, even walking without sedative infusions. In an effort to explore this treatment option in greater detail I have identified Kali Dayton. She is a nurse practitioner who has practiced in this Awake and Walking ICU for many years and is an amazing source of information on this topic. After extensive discussion with many colleagues, administration and many others, and reviewing the major potential benefits of the program for our patients, we have decided to introduce this program into our hospital.
Peter J. Murphy, MD, FCCP, MRCPI, BSc
Perception Versus Reality: Debunking The Myths About Medically-Induced Comas
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