Preventable Health Care-Associated Infections in Pediatric Critical Care.

Health care-associated infections (HAIs) account for a substantial portion of health care-acquired conditions that harm patients receiving medical care in the acute care setting. In this review, we will focus on four common HAIs: central line-associated bloodstream infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, surgical site infections, and catheter-associated urinary tract infections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site provides additional detailed definitions and reporting criteria for each HAI.

Clinical trial design--effect of prone positioning on clinical outcomes in infants and children with acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Purpose: This paper describes the methodology of a clinical trial of prone positioning in pediatric patients with acute lung injury (ALI). Nonrandomized studies suggest that prone positioning improves oxygenation in patients with ALI/acute respiratory distress syndrome without the risk of serious iatrogenic injury. It is not known if these improvements in oxygenation result in improvements in clinical outcomes.

Standard drug concentrations and smart-pump technology reduce continuous-medication-infusion errors in pediatric patients.

Objective: To determine if combining standard drug concentrations with "smart-pump" technology reduces reported medication-infusion errors.

Design: Preintervention and postintervention comparison of reported medication errors related to infusion therapies during the calendar years 2002 and 2003.

Setting: A 242-bed university-affiliated tertiary pediatric hospital.