Critical Care Bulletin – published today

View the latest Critical Care Bulletin – just published here

Critical Care Bulletin Published

The December edition of Critical Care Bulletin has just been published here

Doctors’ and nurses’ views and experience of transferring patients from critical care home to die: A qualitative exploratory study

Authors: Maureen Coombs, Tracy Long-Sutehall, Anne-Sophie Darlington and Alison Richardson

Extract from Palliative Medicine

Background: Dying patients would prefer to die at home, and therefore a goal of end-of-life care is to offer choice regarding where patients die. However, whether it is feasible to offer this option to patients within critical care units and whether teams are willing to consider this option has gained limited exploration internationally.

Aim: To examine current experiences of, practices in and views towards transferring patients in critical care settings home to die.

Free full-text available

Critical Care Bulletin: December 2014

 

The latest Critical Care bulletin published by the Staff Library Service, East Cheshire NHS Trust is available here.  Topics listed below.

• Monitoring and optimising outcomes of survivors of critical illness
• The experience of communication difficulties in critically ill patients in and beyond intensive care
• Feeding the critically ill patient
• Effectiveness of implementing a wake-up and breathe program on sedation and delirium in the ICU
• Protein in nutrition support: the newborn hero for the critically ill?
• Prehospital treatment of sepsis
• Timing of norepinephrine in septic patients
• Effect of a fever control protocol-based strategy on ventilator-associated pneumonia in severely brain-injured patients
• Incidence, risk factors and outcomes of new-onset atrial fibrillation in patients with sepsis
• Association between vitamin D deficiency and mortality in critically ill adult patients
• A practical approach to goal-directed echocardiography in the critical care setting
• The early antibiotic therapy in septic patients
• Sleep continuity
• Intravenous immunoglobulin for severe sepsis and septic shock
• Sedation assessment in a mobile intensive care unit

Critical Care Blog published

 

The September edition of the Critical Care blog produced by The Staff Library is now available.

•  The opportunity cost of futile treatment in the ICU
• Is high-frequency oscillatory ventilation more effective and safer than conventional protective ventilation in adult acute respiratory distress syndrome patients?
• High-frequency oscillatory ventilation in adults
• Conservative fluid therapy in septic shock
• Septic acute kidney injury

Cost-effectiveness of histamine receptor-2 antagonist versus proton pump inhibitor for stress ulcer prophylaxis in critically ill patients*.

Citation: Critical Care Medicine, 01 April 2014, vol./is. 42/4(809-815), 00903493

Author(s): Maclaren, Robert; Campbell, Jon
Language: English

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To examine the cost-effectiveness of using histamine receptor-2 antagonist or proton pump inhibitor for stress ulcer prophylaxis.

DESIGN: Decision analysis model examining costs and effectiveness of using histamine receptor-2 antagonist or proton pump inhibitor for stress ulcer prophylaxis. Costs were expressed in 2012 U.S. dollars from the perspective of the institution and included drug regimens and the following outcomes: clinically significant stress-related mucosal bleed, ventilator-associated pneumonia, and Clostridium difficile infection. Effectiveness was the mortality risk associated with these outcomes and represented by survival. Costs, occurrence rates, and mortality probabilities were extracted from published data.

SETTING: A simulation model.     PATIENTS: A mixed adult ICU population.

NTERVENTIONS: Histamine receptor-2 antagonist or proton pump inhibitor for 9 days of stress ulcer prophylaxis therapy.

MAIN MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Output variables were expected costs, expected survival rates, incremental cost, and incremental survival rate. Univariate sensitivity analyses were conducted to determine the drivers of incremental cost and incremental survival. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis was conducted using second-order Monte Carlo simulation. For the base case analysis, the expected cost of providing stress ulcer prophylaxis was $6,707 with histamine receptor-2 antagonist and $7,802 with proton pump inhibitor, resulting in a cost saving of $1,095 with histamine receptor-2 antagonist. The associated mortality probabilities were 3.819% and 3.825%, respectively resulting in an absolute survival benefit of 0.006% with histamine receptor-2 antagonist. The primary drivers of incremental cost and survival were the assumptions surrounding ventilator-associated pneumonia and bleed. The probabilities that histamine receptor-2 antagonist was less costly and provided favourable survival were 89.4% and 55.7%, respectively. A secondary analysis assuming equal rates of C. difficile infection showed a cost saving of $908 with histamine receptor-2 antagonists, but the survival benefit of 0.0167% favoured proton pump inhibitors.

CONCLUSIONS: Histamine receptor-2 antagonist therapy appears to reduce costs with survival benefit comparable to proton pump inhibitor therapy for stress ulcer prophylaxis. Ventilator-associated pneumonia and bleed are the variables most affecting these outcomes. The uncertainty in the findings justifies a prospective trial.

Publication Type: journal article                         Source: CINAHL

Full Text: Available from Ovid in Critical Care Medicine – Athens required

Latest news articles from BMJ

Rescue boards are set up in England to deal with “significant deterioration” in A&E departments

1. Italian government sets up a stem cell trial to assuage public demands
2. Doctors call for countries to step up the fight against rheumatic heart disease
3. High dose NSAIDs may double the risk of heart attacks and heart failure, says new study
4. Indian generics manufacturer Ranbaxy agrees to pay $500m to settle US fraud and drug safety charges
5. Governments must agree unified approach to use of e-cigarettes, report says
6. Dutch doctors to receive more clarity over use of advance euthanasia directives for patients with dementia
7. Spend less on drug enforcement and more on treating hepatitis C, say campaigners
8. WHO agrees to set up body to act on non-communicable diseases
9. Number, type, and availability of new drugs are on the increase in Europe
10. WHA calls for five demonstration projects on health research relevant to the developing world
11. Government to increase number of GPs and emergency medicine doctors
12. Workplace wellness programs show little benefit, US report says
13. Critical care patients have major health and financial problems 12 months after discharge, finds study
14. WHO to probe claims that Dutch scientists restricted access to novel coronavirus