Driving sepsis mortality down: emergency department and critical care partnerships.

This article describes the Baylor Health Care System (BHCS) approach to decreasing sepsis-related mortality within a large complex adaptive health care system. BHCS implemented sepsis care improvement initiatives based on the Surviving Sepsis Campaign early goal directed therapy guidelines. By adhering to rigorous process improvement and evidence-based practice principles, BHCS has demonstrated improvements in sepsis care processes and a significant reduction in sepsis mortality.

Back to basics: importance of nursing interventions in the elderly critical care patient.

The global population is aging, and with that comes new challenges. Optimal care must be delivered to minimize the time spent in the acute care setting. Avoiding costly complications and focusing on health promotion rather than disease management will be key.

Falls and patient mobility in critical care: keeping patients and staff safe.

Creating safe passage for patients is a priority in hospitals across the United States, a priority in which critical care and advanced practice nurses play a crucial role. Three unique but related areas within this safety framework are fall prevention, the emerging practice of early mobility in intensive care, and safe patient handling. This article explores these 3 topics in tandem to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to guide fall prevention strategies, to explore patient safety associated with early mobility in intensive care units, and, because mobilizing patients is physically demanding for health care workers, to describe safe patient-handling techniques aimed at injury prevention for critical care nurses and others.