Critical care pharmacy service provision and workforce in adult extracorporeal membrane oxygenation centres: a multicentre cross-sectional survey.

Background: There is good evidence describing pharmacy workforce and service provision in general critical care units. However, no data exist from adult extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) centres.

Aim: To describe workforce characteristics, pharmacy service provision, and pharmaceutical care activities in critical care units (CCUs) providing an adult ECMO service in the United Kingdom (UK) and compare to national staffing standards for CCUs.

The association of a critical care electronic prescribing system with the quality of patient care provided by clinical pharmacists - a prospective, observational cohort study.

Background: Despite the strong face validity of electronic prescribing (EP), the empiric data in support of improved patient safety is sparse. The objective of this study was to compare the clinical significance of pharmacist contributions between an established EP and paper-based prescribing (PBP) system in the intensive care unit (ICU) to understand the EP impact on the quality of patient care.

Materials And Methods: We conducted a prospective longitudinal study in two 18-bed ICUs; one with EP and the other, PBP.

Management of adult patients with haematological malignancies in critical care.

There are a diverse range of haematological malignancies with varying clinical presentations and prognoses. Patients with haematological malignancy may require admission to critical care at the time of diagnosis or due to treatment related effects and complications. Although the prognosis for such patients requiring critical care has improved, there remain uncertainties in optimal clinical management.

End-of-Life and Palliative Care in a Critical Care Setting: The Crucial Role of the Critical Care Pharmacist.

Critical care pharmacists play an important role in ICU patient care, with evidence showing reductions in drug prescribing errors, adverse drug events and costs, as well as improvement in clinical outcomes, such as mortality and length of ICU stay. Caring for critically ill patients around the end of their life is complicated by the acute onset of their illness and the fact that most of them are unable to communicate any distressing symptoms. Critical care pharmacists are an integral part of the ICU team during a patient's end-of-life care and their multifaceted role includes clinical support for bedside staff, education, and training, as well as assistance with equipment and logistics.

Foot orthoses and dental appliances--is there a relationship?

Background: This investigation was aimed at examining whether subjects who wear a combination of functional foot orthoses and dental appliances have less postural sway and furthermore to study if these changes are direction dependent.

Methods: Centre of pressure (CoP) displacement in seven subjects, mean age 49 range (39-58) who met the inclusion criteria were evaluated using a pressure platform. Total displacement of the centre of pressure, the reduction in the displacement about the origin, area of the ellipse, total displacement along the x- and y-axes and frequency of sway along the anterior-posterior and mediolateral axes were estimated under four conditions, namely wearing orthoses and appliances, wearing only orthoses, only appliances and finally wearing neither orthoses nor appliances.