Emergency medicine, critical care, and resuscitationists often use the Shock Index to identify patients with increased mortality. The Shock Index is calculated by dividing heart rate by the systolic blood pressure, with a value > 0.8 identifying a potential critically ill patient. In the setting of sepsis, the use of systolic blood pressure to calculate the Shock Index may be less sensitive. In this podcast, we review a recent article that suggests the use of the Diastolic Shock Index may be better in identifying septic patients who require earlier initiation of vasopressor medications.
You can get CME credit for this episode here!Click here for CME Account Creation Instructions
RSI is one of the most common procedures in critically ill patients. Despite its frequency, there remains significant practice variation on numerous aspects of...
Timely administration of broad-spectrum antibiotics is a critical pillar in the resuscitation of patients with sepsis. B-lactam antibiotics are an important class of antibiotics...
More than 1.5 million patients are intubated each year in the United States. In up to 20% of patients, the first attempt at intubation...