Suboptimal care of patients before admission to intensive care

BMJ 1998;316:1841-1842 ( 20 June )

Editorials

Suboptimal care of patients before admission to intensive care

Is caused by a failure to appreciate or apply the ABCs of life support

Papers p 1853

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

During the past decade deficiencies in the quality of medical care have precipitated detailed scrutiny in the form of nationalconfidential inquiries. These inquiries have examined perioperativedeaths (NCEPOD), maternal deaths, and more recently, babies' deaths.^1-3The 1993 NCEPOD report showed that two thirds of perioperativedeaths occurred three or more days after surgery, usually fromcardiorespiratory complications and in a ward environment. Theriskiness of ward care is illustrated again this week in a differentsort of confidential inquiry.

On p 0000 McQuillan and colleagues present the results of a confidential inquiry into the quality of care received by 100patients admitted to intensive care (p 0000).⁴ After conducting structured interviews with the referring and intensive care clinical teams, the investigators completed a questionnaire that focusedon the recognition, investigation, monitoring, and managementof each patient's airway, breathing, and circulation (ABCs). Twoindependent assessors (a nephrologist and an anaesthetist) evaluatedthe . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

StumbleUpon Add to Technorati

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Articles

Suboptimal ward care of critically ill patients: David Gorard, Kieran Walshe, Jeremy Wood, Andrew Smith, Paul J Youngs, Tim Ringrose, Christopher Garrard, C McAllister, S J McGovern, Peter W Duncan, Peter Nightingale, Ian Macartney, Johanna Ryan, Maire P Shelly, Carl Pritchard, Iain D Anderson, Brian J Rowlands, Michael Mercer, Stephen J Fletcher, Gillian F Bishop, Peter McQuillan, Sally Pilkington, Alison Allan, Bruce Taylor, Gary Smith, Mick Nielson, Alasdair Short, Giles Morgan, and Charles Collins
BMJ 1999 318: 51. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

"Airway, breathing, and circulation are the prerequisites of life"
BMJ 1998 316: 0. [Full Text] [PDF]

Confidential inquiry into quality of care before admission to intensive care: Peter McQuillan, Sally Pilkington, Alison Allan, Bruce Taylor, Alasdair Short, Giles Morgan, Mick Nielsen, David Barrett, and Gary Smith
BMJ 1998 316: 1853-1858. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

Sebat, F., Johnson, D., Musthafa, A. A., Watnik, M., Moore, S., Henry, K., Saari, M. (2005). A Multidisciplinary Community Hospital Program for Early and Rapid Resuscitation of Shock in Nontrauma Patients. Chest 127: 1729-1743 [Abstract] [Full text]
Ball, C., Kirkby, M., Williams, S. (2003). Effect of the critical care outreach team on patient survival to discharge from hospital and readmission to critical care: non-randomised population based study. BMJ 327: 1014- [Abstract] [Full text]
Cuthbertson, B. H. (2003). Editorial II: Outreach critical care--cash for no questions?. Br J Anaesth 90: 5-6 [Full text]
Gorard, D., Walshe, K., Wood, J., Smith, A., Youngs, P. J, Ringrose, T., Garrard, C., McAllister, C, McGovern, S J, Duncan, P. W, Nightingale, P., Macartney, I., Ryan, J., Shelly, M. P, Pritchard, C., Anderson, I. D, Rowlands, B. J, Mercer, M., Fletcher, S. J, Bishop, G. F, McQuillan, P., Pilkington, S., Allan, A., Taylor, B., Smith, G., Nielson, M., Short, A., Morgan, G., Collins, C. (1999). Suboptimal ward care of critically ill patients. BMJ 318: 51-51 [Full text]