Should we put multiple COVID-19 patients on a single ventilator?
Jack Iwashyna Should we put multiple COVID-19 patients on a single ventilator?
Prof Jack Iwashyna on the highly limited role of single ventilator / multiple patient workarounds in the COVID-19 epidemic. (Source: Life in the Fast Lane)
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - March 28, 2020 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Jack Iwashyna Tags: Infectious Disease Intensive Care Resuscitation coronavirus Coronaviruses covid-19 covid19 Jack Iwashyna multiple patients SARS-CoV-2 single ventilator Source Type: blogs
The absolute fear and loneliness of COVID-19 patients in the ICU
I am sure this comes as a surprise to no one, but taking care of hospitalized COVID-19 patients outside of the intensive care unit (ICU) is really emotionally draining. The absolute fear and loneliness in their voices pierce into you. They keep asking for reassurance, and I ’m providing some, but not enough of what they […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 28, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/keowa-bonilla" rel="tag" > Keowa Bonilla, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Critical Care Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs
Grieving the end of life experience from an ICU nurse
The image of patients dying in the intensive care unit is changing. Over the phone, family members cry on the other end as I tell them that we are not allowing visitors due to “the coronavirus” at this time. They tell me, “but I help make his decisions for him.” These decisions now have to […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 28, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/anonymous" rel="tag" > Anonymous < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Critical Care Infectious Disease Palliative Care Source Type: blogs
MIT Emergency Ventilator Submitted for FDA Review
The ongoing COVID-19 emergency affecting nearly the entire globe is making medical ventilators into a hot commodity. During normal times, busy intensive care units can expect to use a dozen or so ventilators at the same time. As a respiratory virus, COVID-19 can make breathing on one’s own impossible, so ventilators are expected to be in dire shortage almost everywhere.
A group of MIT engineers has now designed and submitted to the FDA, under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), a ventilator made out of a bag valve mask (aka Ambu-Bags) and readily available electronics, actuators, and motors. Bag valve masks are the...
Source: Medgadget - March 24, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Anesthesiology Cardiology Critical Care Emergency Medicine News Public Health Source Type: blogs
Travel Restrictions and the Spread of COVID-19 – What Does the Research Say?
ConclusionThe above research papers are limited as they just model and project COVID-19 cases rather than empirically test how restrictions affected the actual spread of the disease, but they are valuable starting points in evaluating this crucial policy tool. Travel restrictions could have delayed the onset of a crisis mentality by a few weeks and shifted the curve to the right rather than flattening it. Shifting the curve to the right, in addition to preparing for a pandemic by adopting other policies to reduce transmission, could have been an effective strategy. But by themselves, travel restrictions do little but delay...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Rapidly manufactured ventilator system specification
Department of Health and Social Care - The government is looking for businesses who can support in the supply of ventilators and ventilator components across the UK as part of the response to coronavirus (COVID-19). This guidance is a specification of the minimally clinically acceptable ventilator, along with some preferred options, to be used in UK hospitals during the current coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. It sets out the clinical requirements based on the consensus of what is ‘minimally acceptable’ performance in the opinion of anaesthesia and intensive care medicine professionals and medical device regulato...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - March 22, 2020 Category: UK Health Authors: The King ' s Fund Library Tags: Local authorities, public health and health inequalities Source Type: blogs
Coronavirus: the human factor in intensive care
The summer of 1979 is permanently etched into my memory. I walked into the intensive care unit as a newly minted intern. I walked over to ICU-Bed 1 to be introduced to my first patient, a frail teenaged boy who was tethered to a ventilator. “He is day 30 with respiratory failure from disseminated coccidioidomycosis,” […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 21, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/lawrence-hurwitz" rel="tag" > Lawrence Hurwitz, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs
Preparing for the COVID-19 pandemic
Dr Andrew Davies Preparing for the COVID-19 pandemic
In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, this episode focuses on the pandemic planning all ICUs should be doing - if they haven’t already been overwhelmed. (Source: Life in the Fast Lane)
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - March 20, 2020 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Dr Andrew Davies Tags: Infectious Disease Mastering Intensive Care Podcast coronavirus COVID covid19 SARS-CoV-2 Steve McGloughlin Source Type: blogs
Should Hospitals Practice Better Social Distancing?
Jeffrey A. SingerFederal and state officials are taking steps to effectuate a more efficient and flexible response to the coronavirus epidemic by removing regulatory obstacles to the free movement of drugs, tests, and health care practitioners. Federal and state regulations are even beinglifted on truck drivers and rail operators, to ease the transport of groceries, and other essential goods.These steps all make sense. And, as I have writtenhere, removing the barriers to the movement of doctors, nurses, and other health professionals that result from state occupational licensing laws is a smart way to facili...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 19, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
I ’ve been on a ventilator before, so I’d like to sit this pandemic out
I have bled out during emergency surgery and been revived by the expert trauma and transplant team who raced into my operating room. I have had liter upon liter of donated blood transfused into my grey lifeless body. I survived months on a ventilator in an intensive care unit. I have had my lungs fill […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 19, 2020 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/lisa-goodman-helfand" rel="tag" > Lisa Goodman-Helfand < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions COVID-19 coronavirus Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs
The Stun Setting
Lately I’ve been feeling like we’re living through a particular Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.
No, not “Contagion” – that’s about a computer virus.
Not “Thine Own Self” either, but that’s a good guess.
I’m thinking of “The Ensigns of Command.”
That’s the episode where Data, the android character, must convince a bunch of stubborn colonists that they need to immediately pack up and leave the colony they worked so hard to build. The human colonists must leave because thanks to a treaty, the planet where they’ve built their co...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - March 18, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Emotions Health Values Source Type: blogs
The Voice and Role of Palliative Care in the Era of COVID-19
by Suzana Makowski (@suzanakm)Theguidelines outlined in the recent letter co-sponsored by Pallimed and Geripal serve as important reminders of key messages for clinicians: social distancing, handwashing, use of personal protective equipment to help flatten the curve of viral spread, adhering to protocols about screening, testing and even triaging.I would advocate for another layer of engagement in this effort. Palliative care as a specialty is uniquely positioned to address the people who are likely to be disproportionately affected by the disease: the chronically ill and the aged. After all, this population is the demogra...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - March 17, 2020 Category: Palliative Care Tags: covid emergency preparedness makowski Source Type: blogs
This Will Not Be Over Quickly
Italy provides a glimpse of what’s coming soon to the rest of Europe, the USA, and other parts of the world.
Here’s what’s happening in the Italian city of Parma:
The intensive care units are now all full. Hospital wards are spilling out into corridors, tents, car parks, gardens and commercial warehouses. We are hearing words – like “triage” – which are usually associated with warfare. Medics and nurses are having to make decisions on which patients to prioritise. Some doctors have died, and others have compared the numbers of admissions to dealing with “an earthquake every day”.Source: ...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - March 15, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Health Lifestyle Source Type: blogs
We Need to Align With What ’ s Coming Next
We’ve seen a lot of changes in the world this week due to the coronavirus situation. I think what many people don’t yet realize is that the rate of change isn’t going to be linear. It’s going to accelerate.
Despite all the changes you’ve seen this week, next week’s changes will be bigger still… and the changes coming the week after that will be even bigger. So if your head is spinning now, it will spin twice as hard next week.
In the USA I see people making some adaptations, but they seem to be mentally making minimalist ones. By this I mean that they’re taking in what ...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - March 15, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Health Values Source Type: blogs
Pandemic Fears: What the AIDS Battle Should Teach Us About COVID-19
By ANISH KOKA, MD
As the globe faces a novel, highly transmissible,
lethal virus, I am most struck by a medicine cabinet that is embarrassingly
empty for doctors in this battle. This
means much of the debate centers on mitigation of spread of the virus. Tempers flare over discussions on travel
bans, social distancing, and self quarantines, yet the inescapable fact remains
that the medical community can do little more than support the varying
fractions of patients who progress from mild to severe and life threatening
disease. This isn’t meant to minimize the
massive efforts brought to bear to keep pat...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 12, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: CORVID-19 Health Policy Patients Physicians AIDS Anish Koka AZT coronavirus COVID-19 FDA novel coronavirus Pandemic Source Type: blogs
