Reducing waste in the critical care setting.

Background: The ICU at London Health Sciences Centre-University Hospital (LHSC-UH) is a 40-bed critical care unit that contains two separate supply rooms that carry all the essential materials necessary for patient care. However, considering the patient acuity in critical care, it is vital that this equipment is made more accessible for practitioners at the bedside. Therefore, nurse servers or bedside supply cabinets are present in each of the patient rooms.

Impact of the opening of a specialized cardiac surgery recovery unit on postoperative outcomes in an academic health sciences centre.

Purpose: It is controversial as to whether cardiac surgery patients are optimally managed in a mixed medical-surgical intensive care unit (ICU) or in a specialized postoperative unit. We conducted a prospective cohort study in an academic health sciences centre to compare outcomes before and following the opening of a specialized cardiac surgery recovery unit (CSRU) in April 2005.

Methods: The study cohort included 2,599 consecutive patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), valve and combined CABG-valve procedures from April 2004 to March 2006.