Over the past decade, the annual hours of critical care delivered in US emergency departments has sharply risen. Undoubtedly, many critically ill patients remain in the ED for numerous hours awaiting an ICU bed. In an attempt to improve the delivery of critical care to boarding ED patients, several hospitals and health care systems have recently implemented ED-based ICUs. In this podcast, we discuss a recent article published in JAMA Open Network evaluating the impact on mortality and resource utilization of an ED-based ICU.
Emergency physicians intubate critically ill patients daily. Unfortunately, up to 17% of ED intubations can be complicated by peri-intubation hypoxemia, hypotension, and cardiac arrest....
The use of steroids in patients with sepsis and septic shock has been controversial for decades. At present, the Surviving Sepsis Campaign recommends the...
Both etomidate and propofol are commonly used sedative agents in critically ill patients. Recent literature has suggested that these agents may result in increased...