On June 30, 2022 the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (the Commission) has released the national Sepsis Clinical Care Standard, in partnership with The George Institute for Global Health. It is an achievement that Australia has reached broad consensus across the health sector, to become one of the first countries to release a nationally agreed quality framework for the recognition and management of sepsis. The standard outlines optimal care...

JAMA Clinical Guidelines Synopsis February 15, 2022 Diagnosis of Lyme Disease David Pitrak, Cynthia T. Nguyen, Adam S. Cifu, et al JAMA. 2022;327(7):676-677. doi:10.1001/jama.2022.0081 Guideline title Clinical Practice Guidelines by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), American Academy of Neurology (AAN), and American College of Rheumatology (ACR): 2020 Guidelines for the Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Lyme Disease ...

ICU Management & Practice, Volume 21 - Issue 5, 2021 Management of Acute Arrhythmias in Patients With Cardiac Dysfunction - Update of ESC Guidelines In 2020, the ultra-short acting beta-blocker landiolol was first included in the ESC guidelines with a class I recommendation. The recommendations were based on study results demonstrating the rapid response, efficacy, and safety of this drug. At a recent symposium, during 2021 Heart Failure World Congress, car...

Transfusion strategies in bleeding critically ill adults: a clinical practice guideline from the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine Alexander P. J. Vlaar, Joanna C. Dionne, Sanne de Bruin, et al Intensive Care Medicine  2021; 47: 1368-1392 Transfusion support in massively bleeding, critically ill adults Part 1: massively bleeding patients 1. Transfusion ratios We suggest use of high-ratio transfusion strategies (at least one unit plasm...

Practice Rapid Recommendations A living WHO guideline on drugs for covid-19 Arnav Agarwal,  Bram Rochwerg, Reed AC Siemieniuk, et al BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3379 (Published 04 September 2020)Cite this as: BMJ 2020;370:m3379 Abstract Updates This is a living guideline. It replaces earlier versions (4 September 2020, 20 November 2020, 17 December 2020, 31 March 2021, 6 July 2021, and 23 September 2021). The previous versions ...

ICU Management & Practice, Volume 21 - Issue 1, 2021 Evidence-Based Management of Atrial Fibrillation The 2020 ESC Guidelines and the addition of Landiolol An overview of the updated guidelines for the diagnosis and management of atrial fibrillation, developed in association with the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) provides a range of scientific and educational activities, such as the producti...

Selection Criteria for Lung Transplantation in COVID-19 Patients In May 2020, a team led by thoracic surgeon Konrad Hoetzenecker of the Department of Surgery of MedUni Vienna and Vienna General Hospital performed a lung transplant on a 44-year-old patient who had been seriously ill with COVID-19. She thus became the first patient in Europe to receive a lung transplant for this indication. The Vienna lung transplantation programme now plays a leading role in an i...

EORTC/MSGERC Definitions of Invasive Fungal Diseases: Summary of Activities of the Intensive Care Unit Working Group Matteo Bassetti, Elie Azoulay, Bart-Jan Kullberg, et al Clin Infect Dis 2021; 72(S2): S121-7 INVASIVE CANDIDIASIS Defining Proven and Probable Invasive Candidiasis in the Intensive Care Unit After several rounds of review and discussion, the proposed definition for proven IC by the ICU Working Group required definitive evidence of the organis...

Choosing Wisely: The Next Five Recommendations In 2010, Howard Brody, a medical ethicist and family physician, authored "Medicine's Ethical Responsibility for Healthcare Reform - The Top Five List". His list challenged medical societies to identify five interventions in healthcare that were overused, and that did not provide patient benefit. Following the same logic, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) soon launched its "Choosing Wisely" campaign that also c...

CDC Interim Guidelines for Fully Vaccinated People Efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic finally became possible when, in December 2020, the FDA authorised the use of the first COVID-19 vaccine, manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech. Soon after, two additional vaccines from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson also received emergency authorisation for use. As of 8 March 2021, over 31 million people in the U.S. have completed their vaccination.  As the number of ...