Making a Connection: Family Experiences With Bedside Rounds in the Intensive Care Unit.

Background: The hospitalization of a family member in an intensive care unit can be stressful for the family. Family bedside rounds is a way for the care team to inform family members, answer questions, and involve them in care decisions. The experiences of family members with intensive care unit bedside rounds have been examined in few studies.

ICU Telemedicine Program Financial Outcomes.

Background: ICU telemedicine improves access to high-quality critical care, has substantial costs, and can change financial outcomes. Detailed information about financial outcomes and their trends over time following ICU telemedicine implementation and after the addition of logistic center function has not been published to our knowledge.

Methods: Primary data were collected for consecutive adult patients of a single academic medical center.

Prevalence and test characteristics of national health safety network ventilator-associated events.

Objectives: The primary aim of the study was to measure the test characteristics of the National Health Safety Network ventilator-associated event/ventilator-associated condition constructs for detecting ventilator-associated pneumonia. Its secondary aims were to report the clinical features of patients with National Health Safety Network ventilator-associated event/ventilator-associated condition, measure costs of surveillance, and its susceptibility to manipulation.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

A multicenter study of ICU telemedicine reengineering of adult critical care.

Background: Few studies have evaluated both the overall effect of ICU telemedicine programs and the effect of individual components of the intervention on clinical outcomes.

Methods: The effects of nonrandomized ICU telemedicine interventions on crude and adjusted mortality and length of stay (LOS) were measured. Additionally, individual intervention components related to process and setting of care were evaluated for their association with mortality and LOS.

Interdisciplinary collaboration: the slogan that must be achieved for models of delivering critical care to be successful.

There is wide acceptance of the concept that interdisciplinary collaboration is an essential building block for successful health-care teams. This belief is grounded in our understanding of how teams function to address complex care needs that change with acute illness or injury. This general agreement has been validated in studies that have reported favorable outcomes associated with successfully implementing interdisciplinary models of health-care delivery in non-critical care settings.

Hospital mortality, length of stay, and preventable complications among critically ill patients before and after tele-ICU reengineering of critical care processes.

Context: The association of an adult tele-intensive care unit (ICU) intervention with hospital mortality, length of stay, best practice adherence, and preventable complications for an academic medical center has not been reported.

Objective: To quantify the association of a tele-ICU intervention with hospital mortality, length of stay, and complications that are preventable by adherence to best practices.

Design, Setting, And Patients: Prospective stepped-wedge clinical practice study of 6290 adults admitted to any of 7 ICUs (3 medical, 3 surgical, and 1 mixed cardiovascular) on 2 campuses of an 834-bed academic medical center that was performed from April 26, 2005, through September 30, 2007.