Editorial  January 16, 2024 A Tale of 2 Palliative Care Trials: Developing Sustainable and Transferable Models Ashwin A. Kotwal, Lauren J. Hunt, Alexander K. Smith JAMA. 2024;331(3):196-198. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.26815 At first glance, the 2 palliative care trials in this issue of JAMA may seem a study in contrasts.1,2 One was an outpatient intervention, the other inpatient. One included 306 participants, the other 24 065. One was an efficacy...

ICU Management & Practice, Volume 23 - Issue 4, 2023 Artificial Intelligence in Anaesthesia and Critical Care - Temptations and Pitfalls Big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are buzzwords. In this article, we briefly discuss what they mean for anaesthesiologists and intensivists, focusing on existing clinical applications. We are today able to collect and store a considerable amount of patient-related data. These “big” data are typ...

Medical News & Perspectives  January 10, 2024 From “Immunity Debt” to “Immunity Theft”—How COVID-19 Might Be Tied to Recent Respiratory Disease Surges Rita Rubin JAMA. Published online January 10, 2024. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.26608 Last fall, children in China were coming down with respiratory illnesses earlier and in greater numbers than usual. Ditto for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections in the US and elsewhere in 2021 and 2...

Checklists in the Intensive Care Unit Checklists are cognitive aids that ensure task completion, enhance adherence to best practices, and prevent errors. In the complex environment of the ICU, checklists have been adopted to improve leadership, team performance, and patient outcomes. While research over the past two decades supports the efficacy of specific ICU checklists, the diverse nature of checklist items, implementation methods, and outcomes measured makes de...

Infection in ECMO Patients The use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) has risen significantly as a rescue therapy for respiratory issues, including those caused by viral infections. Patients on ECMO frequently experience complications like thrombotic events and major bleeding, which are considered ECMO-related issues. However, infections are typically attributed to the patient's underlying condition rather than ECMO itself. A literature search was con...

Editor's Note  January 8, 2024 Protecting Patients by Reducing Diagnostic Error Grace Y. Zhang, Cary P. Gross JAMA Intern Med. Published online January 8, 2024. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.7334 Almost a decade after the release of “Improving Diagnosis in Health Care,” the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report that highlighted the imperative to improve the diagnostic process in health care, diagnostic errors conti...

Uncovering Heterogeneity in Sepsis Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Despite progress in understanding its underlying mechanisms, there's no specific successful treatment for sepsis. Precision therapy is needed, and understanding the heterogeneity of sepsis is crucial. Recent methods have attempted to measure sepsis heterogeneity using various computational approaches on clinical, biomarker, or gene expre...

Redefining Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) has been known for over a century but was officially described in 1967. Despite revisions in its definition, there's ongoing debate about whether ARDS is a distinct medical condition. The current diagnostic criteria for ARDS are challenging to apply in clinical practice, so standardising the assessment of pulmonary and extrapulmonary involvement is needed for more personalised...

Medical News & Perspectives  January 31, 2024 Paxlovid Is Effective but Underused—Here’s What the Latest Research Says About Rebound and More Rita Rubin JAMA. Published online January 31, 2024. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.28254 Anyone who watches television has probably seen the Pfizer commercial with the tagline, “If it’s COVID, Paxlovid.” That might be a catchy slogan, but, apparently, a lot of people aren’t getting the message. The...

ICU Management & Practice, Volume 23 - Issue 4, 2023 Neonatal Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Xenios sponsored a lunch symposium at the 16th European Conference on Paediatric and Neonatal Ventilation (EPNV) in Montreux (CH) in May 2023. Matteo Di Nardo (Italy) introduced the audience to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in neonates. Florian Kipfmüller (Germany) presented current knowledge and his experience with ECMO in neonates with congenital...