Critical care transfer in an English critical care network: Analysis of 1124 transfers delivered by an ad-hoc system.

Background: Critical care transfers between hospitals are time critical high-risk episodes for unstable patients who often require urgent lifesaving intervention. This study aimed to establish the scale, nature and safety of current transfer practice in the South West Critical Care Network (SWCCN) in England.

Methods: The SWCCN database contains prospectively collected data in accordance with national guidelines.

Towards a decision support tool for intensive care discharge: machine learning algorithm development using electronic healthcare data from MIMIC-III and Bristol, UK.

Objective: The primary objective is to develop an automated method for detecting patients that are ready for discharge from intensive care.

Design: We used two datasets of routinely collected patient data to test and improve on a set of previously proposed discharge criteria.

Setting: Bristol Royal Infirmary general intensive care unit (GICU).

Increasing compliance with low tidal volume ventilation in the ICU with two nudge-based interventions: evaluation through intervention time-series analyses.

Objectives: Low tidal volume (TVe) ventilation improves outcomes for ventilated patients, and the majority of clinicians state they implement it. Unfortunately, most patients never receive low TVes. 'Nudges' influence decision-making with subtle cognitive mechanisms and are effective in many contexts.

Using 'nudge' principles for order set design: a before and after evaluation of an electronic prescribing template in critical care.

Objective: Computerised order sets have the potential to reduce clinical variation and improve patient safety but the effect is variable. We sought to evaluate the impact of changes to the design of an order set on the delivery of chlorhexidine mouthwash and hydroxyethyl starch (HES) to patients in the intensive care unit.

Methods: The study was conducted at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, UK.