Early in-hospital course of critically ill nontrauma patients in a resuscitation room of a German emergency department (OBSERvE2 study).

Background: Management of critically ill nontrauma (CINT) patients in the resuscitation room of the emergency department (ED) is very challenging. Detailed data describing the patient characteristics and management of this population are lacking. This observational study describes the epidemiology, management and outcome in CINT ED patients in the resuscitation room.

The paediatric Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (pCAM-ICU): translation and cognitive debriefing for the German-speaking area.

Purpose: To date there are only a few studies published, dealing with delirium in critically ill patients. The problem with these studies is that prevalence rates of delirium could only be estimated because of the lack of validated delirium assessment tools for the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU). The paediatric Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (pCAM-ICU) was specifically developed and validated for the detection of delirium in PICU patients.

Outbreak of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii carrying the carbapenemase OXA-23 in a German university medical centre.

A prolonged outbreak of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in a German university medical centre in 2006 was investigated; the investigation included a descriptive epidemiological analysis, a case-control study, environmental sampling, molecular typing of A. baumannii isolates using PFGE and repetitive-sequence-based PCR (rep-PCR) typing, and detection of OXA-type carbapenemases by multiplex PCR. Thirty-two patients acquired the outbreak strain in five intensive care units (ICUs) and two regular wards at a tertiary care hospital within 10 months.