conclusions the patient cost increased as the length of stay increased due to the policy of bundle pricing. results the female/male ratio was 2.55. the mean age of the 71 poisoned patients was 28.92 ± 11.51 years. most of the poisoning agents were pharmaceuticals (68 cases). among the pharmaceuticals, antidepressants were involved most often, followed by analgesics. there was no statistically s...

BACKGROUND Symptoms of anxiety and depression are common among family members of ICU patients and are culturally dependent. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of symptoms of anxiety and depression and associated factors in family members of ICU patients in two Central European countries. METHODS We conducted a prospective multicenter study involving 22 ICUs (250 beds) in the Cz...

ICU capacity strain is associated with increased morbidity and lost hospital revenue, leading many hospitals to increase the number of ICU beds. However, this approach can lead to inefficiency and waste. A recent report in Critical Care highlights a different approach: creating new service lines for low-risk patients. In this case, the authors started a post-anesthesia care unit with an intensi...

medication errors (mes) are the most common error in icus. in fact, 78% of all serious errors in icus are due to mes. therefore, detecting mes has vital significance. the goal of this study was to investigate the frequency, type and consequences of different types of errors including prescribing, transcribing and administration errors in an icu of a large teaching hospital. disguised direct obs...

As your hospital's ICU director, you are approached by the hospital's administration to help solve ongoing problems with ICU bed availability. The ICU seems to be constantly full, and trauma patients in the emergency department sometimes wait up to 24 hours before receiving a bed. Additionally, the cardiac surgeons were forced to cancel several elective coronary-artery bypass graft cases becaus...

ICUs are an essential but expensive part of all modern hospitals. With increasingly limited healthcare funding, methods to reduce expenditure without negatively influencing patient outcomes are, therefore, of interest. One possible solution has been the development of 'intermediate care units', which provide more intensive monitoring and patient management with higher nurse:patient ratios than ...

RATIONALE The extent to which geographic variability in ICU admission across the United States is driven by patients with lower risk of death is unknown. OBJECTIVES To determine whether patients at low to moderate risk of death contribute to geographic variation in ICU admission. METHODS Retrospective cohort of hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries (age > 64 years) admitted for ten ...

objective one of the prominent microorganisms in several reports of nosocomial infections is staphylococcus aureus (s. aureus) which is carried by several health care workers (hcw) many times throughout the day. the present investigation was conducted to assess the nasal and hand carriage rate of s. aureus amongst medical personnel of loghman hakim hospital's toxicological intensive care unit (...