In Situ Synthesis and Assembly of Functional Materials and Devices in Living Systems.

ConspectusIntegrating functional materials and devices with living systems enables novel methods for recording, manipulating, or augmenting organisms not accessible by traditional chemical, optical, or genetic approaches. (The term "device" refers to the fundamental components of complex electronic systems, such as transistors, capacitors, conductors, and electrodes.) Typically, these advanced materials and devices are synthesized, either through chemical or physical reactions, outside the biological systems (ex situ) before they are integrated.

3D spatiotemporally scalable in vivo neural probes based on fluorinated elastomers.

Electronic devices for recording neural activity in the nervous system need to be scalable across large spatial and temporal scales while also providing millisecond and single-cell spatiotemporal resolution. However, existing high-resolution neural recording devices cannot achieve simultaneous scalability on both spatial and temporal levels due to a trade-off between sensor density and mechanical flexibility. Here we introduce a three-dimensional (3D) stacking implantable electronic platform, based on perfluorinated dielectric elastomers and tissue-level soft multilayer electrodes, that enables spatiotemporally scalable single-cell neural electrophysiology in the nervous system.

Patients Who Decompensate and Trigger Rapid Response Immediately Upon Hospital Admission Have Higher Mortality Than Equivalent Patients Without Rapid Responses.

Background: Rapid response teams (RRTs) have impacted the management of decompensating patients, potentially improving mortality. Few studies address the significance of RRT timing relative to hospital admission. We aimed to identify outcomes of adult patients who trigger immediate RRT activation, defined as within 4 hours of admission and compare with RRT later in admission or do not require RRT activation, and identify risk factors that predispose toward immediate RRT activation.

Optogenetic polymerization and assembly of electrically functional polymers for modulation of single-neuron excitability.

Ionic conductivity and membrane capacitance are two foundational parameters that govern neuron excitability. Conventional optogenetics has emerged as a powerful tool to temporarily manipulate membrane ionic conductivity in intact biological systems. However, no analogous method exists for precisely manipulating cell membrane capacitance to enable long-lasting modulation of neuronal excitability.

Wellness and Coping of Physicians Who Worked in ICUs During the Pandemic: A Multicenter Cross-Sectional North American Survey.

Objectives: Few surveys have focused on physician moral distress, burnout, and professional fulfilment. We assessed physician wellness and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design: Cross-sectional survey using four validated instruments.

Supporting Professionals in Critical Care Medicine: Burnout, Resiliency, and System-Level Change.

Burnout is occurring in epidemic proportions among intensive care unit physicians and other health-care professionals-accelerated by pandemic-driven stress. The impact of burnout is far-reaching, threatening the health of individual workers, the safety and quality of care our patients receive, and eroding the infrastructure of health care in general. Drivers of burnout include excessive quantity of work (nights, weekends, and acuity surges); excessive menial tasks; incivility, poor communication, and challenges to team success; and frequent moral distress and end-of-life issues.

COVID-19: Lessons Learned, Lessons Unlearned, Lessons for the Future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected clinicians in many different ways. Clinicians have their own experiences and lessons that they have learned from their work in the pandemic. This article outlines a few lessons learned from the eyes of CHEST Critical Care Editorial Board members, namely practices which will be abandoned, novel practices to be adopted moving forward, and proposed changes to the health care system in general.

Endotracheal Tube Size Is Associated With Mortality in Patients With Status Asthmaticus.

Background: There is limited evidence on the clinical importance of the endotracheal tube (ETT) size selection in patients with status asthmaticus who require invasive mechanical ventilation. We set out to explore the clinical outcomes of different ETT internal diameter sizes in subjects mechanically ventilated with status asthmaticus.

Methods: This was a retrospective study of intubated and non-intubated adults admitted for status asthmaticus between 2014-2021.

Professional Societies' Role in Addressing Member Burnout and Promoting Well-Being.

Critical care clinicians have high burnout rates. Previous studies have explored individual and organizational solutions to address burnout, but existing literature has not considered how professional societies can prevent burnout and promote member well-being. The Critical Care Society Collaborative convened a task force to document professional society initiatives to address burnout, explore perspectives on the role of societies to address burnout, and develop recommendations that could guide critical care societies' efforts to promote well-being.

Exhaled breath condensate biomarkers in critically ill, mechanically ventilated patients.

Pneumonia is a significant risk for critically ill, mechanically ventilated (CIMV) patients. Diagnosis of pneumonia generally requires a combination of clinician-guided diagnoses and clinical scoring systems. Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) can be safely collected non-invasively from CIMV patients.

Workforce, Workload, and Burnout in Critical Care Organizations: Survey Results and Research Agenda.

Objectives: This report provides analyses and perspective of a survey of critical care workforce, workload, and burnout among the intensivists and advanced practice providers of established U.S. and Canadian critical care organizations and provides a research agenda.

Antibiotic Stewardship in the Intensive Care Unit. An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report in Collaboration with the AACN, CHEST, CDC, and SCCM.

Intensive care units (ICUs) are an appropriate focus of antibiotic stewardship program efforts because a large proportion of any hospital's use of parenteral antibiotics, especially broad-spectrum, occurs in the ICU. Given the importance of antibiotic stewardship for critically ill patients and the importance of critical care practitioners as the front line for antibiotic stewardship, a workshop was convened to specifically address barriers to antibiotic stewardship in the ICU and discuss tactics to overcome these. The working definition of antibiotic stewardship is "the right drug at the right time and the right dose for the right bug for the right duration.

The Critical Nature of Addressing Burnout Prevention: Results From the Critical Care Societies Collaborative's National Summit and Survey on Prevention and Management of Burnout in the ICU.

Objectives: To summarize the results of expert discussions and recommendations from a National Summit and survey on the promoting wellness and preventing and managing burnout in the ICU.

Data Sources: Literature review; Critical Care Societies Collaborative (CCSC) Statement on Burnout Syndrome in Critical Care Healthcare Professionals: A Call for Action; CCSC's National Summit on Prevention and Management of Burnout in the ICU; and a descriptive survey on strategies for addressing burnout using Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) (project-redcap.org).

Choosing Wisely in Critical Care: A National Survey of Critical Care Nurses.

Background: To promote the use of appropriate testing, and decrease unnecessary treatments, the ABIM Foundation established the Choosing Wisely campaign in 2012. Initially targeting physicians, the campaign has evolved to encourage all providers to promote high-value care; however, information related to critical care nursing is limited.

Objectives: To assess nurses' reports of the use of Choosing Wisely recommendations in critical care settings.

Near-simultaneous intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and all-cause mortality: a cohort study.

Purpose: Prior studies have reported the adverse effects of strain on patient outcomes. There is a paucity of literature about a type of strain that may be caused by near-simultaneous intensive care unit (ICU) admissions. We hypothesized that when multiple admissions arrive nearly at the same time, the ICU teams are excessively strained, and this leads to unfavorable patient outcomes.

Supply Chain Delays in Antimicrobial Administration After the Initial Clinician Order and Mortality in Patients With Sepsis.

Objectives: There is mounting evidence that delays in appropriate antimicrobial administration are responsible for preventable deaths in patients with sepsis. Herein, we examine the association between potentially modifiable antimicrobial administration delays, measured by the time from the first order to the first administration (antimicrobial lead time), and death among people who present with new onset of sepsis.

Design: Observational cohort and case-control study.

Choosing Wisely in Critical Care: Results of a National Survey From the Critical Care Societies Collaborative.

Objectives: Over-utilization of tests, treatments, and procedures is common for hospitalized patients in ICU settings. American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation's Choosing Wisely campaign tasked professional societies to identify sources of overuse in specialty care practice. The purpose of this study was to assess how critical care clinicians were implementing the Critical Care Societies Collaborative Choosing Wisely recommendations in clinical practice.

Workforce, Workload, and Burnout Among Intensivists and Advanced Practice Providers: A Narrative Review.

Objectives: To assess-by literature review and expert consensus-workforce, workload, and burnout considerations among intensivists and advanced practice providers.

Design: Data were synthesized from monthly expert consensus and literature review.

Setting: Workforce and Workload section workgroup of the Academic Leaders in Critical Care Medicine Task Force.

Switching Between Bicyclic and Linear Peptides - The Sulfhydryl-Specific Linker TPSMB Enables Reversible Cyclization of Peptides.

Phage display-selected bicyclic peptides have already shown their great potential for the development as bioactive modulators of therapeutic targets. They can provide enhanced proteolytic stability and improved membrane permeability. Molecular design of new linker molecules has led to a variety of new synthetic approaches for the generation of chemically constrained cyclic peptides.

Photoactivatable Sensors for Detecting Mobile Zinc.

Fluorescent sensors for mobile zinc are valuable for studying complex biological systems. Because these sensors typically bind zinc rapidly and tightly, there has been little temporal control over the activity of the probe after its application to a sample. The ability to control the activity of a zinc sensor in vivo during imaging experiments would greatly improve the time resolution of the measurement.

From 2-Alkylsulfanylimidazoles to 2-Alkylimidazoles: An Approach towards Metabolically More Stable p38α MAP Kinase Inhibitors.

In vitro and in vivo metabolism studies revealed that 2-alkylsulfanylimidazole (4-(5-(4-fluorophenyl)-2-(methylthio)-1-imidazol-4-yl)--(1-phenylethyl)pyridin-2-amine) undergoes rapid oxidation to the sulfoxide. Replacing the sulfur atom present in the two potent p38α mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase inhibitors and (2-((5-(4-fluorophenyl)-4-(2-((3-methylbutan-2-yl)amino)pyridin-4-yl)-1-imidazol-2-yl)thio)ethan-1-ol) by a methylene group resulted in 2-alkylimidazole derivatives and , respectively, having a remarkably improved metabolic stability. The 2-alkylimidazole analogs and showed 20% and 10% biotransformation after 4 h of incubation with human liver microsomes, respectively.

Update in Management of Severe Hypoxemic Respiratory Failure.

Mortality related to severe-moderate and severe ARDS remains high. We searched the literature to update this topic. We defined severe hypoxemic respiratory failure as Pao/Fio < 150 mm Hg (ie, severe-moderate and severe ARDS).