Published in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine: November/December 2014 – Volume 39 – Issue 6 – p 472–477 Authors: Terkawi, Abdullah S. MD et al Background: One of the modalities of treatment for breast cancer surgery pain is opioids, and opioids are associated with adverse effects such as itching and postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV). […]
Read MoreHigh patient to nurse ratios may lead to more errors and fatal outcomes. A high nurse to patient ratio in intensive care units was independently associated with a lower risk of in-hospital death, according to results from a study involving more than a thousand ICUs in 75 countries. An analysis of data from the EPIC […]
Read MorePublished in Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology: December 2014 – Volume 27 – Issue 6 – p 563–575 Authors: Aurini, Lucia et al Purpose of review: As the number of ambulatory surgery procedures continues to grow in an aging global society, the implementation of evidence-based perioperative care programs for the elderly patients will assume increased importance. […]
Read MorePublished in European Journal of Anaesthesiology: January 2015 – Volume 32 – Issue 1 – p 5–12 Authors: Slagt, Cornelis; Helmi, Mochamat; Malagon, Ignacio; Groeneveld, A.B. Johan BACKGROUND: Cardiac output (CO) measurement is often required in critically ill patients. The performances of newer, less invasive techniques require evaluation in patients with severe sepsis and septic […]
Read MoreI wanted to share this with our readers since we provide anesthesia for patients. The anesthesiologist was getting nervous. Joan Rivers, the comic known for her sassy wit and raspy voice, had been complaining of more than the usual hoarseness. Now Ms. Rivers was on the operating table at an Upper East Side clinic and […]
Read MorePublished in JAMA Intern Med 2014 Dec 1; 174:1982 Authors: Lindenauer PK et al. Compared with invasive ventilation for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations, noninvasive positive pressure ventilation was associated with lower in-hospital mortality, length of stay, and cost. Based on meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials, noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NPPV) is the only intervention […]
Read MoreHalf of provider payments in five years will be tied to quality of care The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Monday said it would fundamentally reform how it pays providers for treating Medicare patients in the coming years. The intent, according to HHS officials, is to cut down on the volume […]
Read MoreThis is another article I thought was interesting so I wanted to share it with our readers. At issue: who has authority to hire, fire, and discipline staff physicians. The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that a medical staff has standing to sue its hospital board and that the medical staff bylaws constitute “an enforceable […]
Read MorePublished in Am J Emerg Med 2015 Jan 33:50 Authors: Gao Y-B et al. In a meta-analysis, ultrasound guidance led to more successfully placed radial artery lines than palpation alone. Radial artery catheters are frequently placed in the emergency department (ED) and intensive care unit (ICU) for hemodynamic monitoring and arterial blood gas analysis. A […]
Read MorePublished in JAMA 2015 Jan 20 Authors: Noto MJ et al. A new study challenges the benefits of daily chlorhexidine bathing in reducing hospital-acquired infections. One recently developed strategy to prevent hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in intensive care units (ICUs) has been unit-wide patient bathing with chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) to broadly decrease skin colonization with microbial […]
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