Hospital Medicine Alert – October 1, 2010
October 1, 2010
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Outcomes After Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation: Not as Favorable as One Might Wish
In this single-center study of what happened to 126 consecutive patients who survived an ICU admission requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation, 56% of them were alive after one year, but only 11 of these were functioning independently. On average, the patients spent 74% of all post-discharge days in the hospital, in a post-acute care facility, or at home receiving paid home health care. -
Anthrax in Heroin Users
A critically ill patient, who was a heroin user, was admitted to a hospital in Scotland in December 2009 and was found to be infected with Bacillus anthracis. -
Chest Compression-only CPR
The dispatcher-assisted resuscitation trial (DART) tested the hypothesis that 911 dispatcher instructions to provide chest compressions only would be superior to similar instructions that included both chest compressions and rescue breathing. Calls to a 911 system for patients in cardiac arrest were eligible for inclusion in the trial if the dispatcher felt the patient was in cardiac arrest and bystander CPR had not yet been attempted. -
Bacterial Contamination of Health Care Providers' Cell Phones
For this study of bacterial contamination of the cell phones of health care workers in a teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia, the investigators swabbed the screen, dialing pad, and sides of the phones and used standard culture techniques. -
Stent Thrombosis Post Non-cardiac Surgery
There is considerable concern regarding in-stent thrombosis of drug-eluting stents (DES) when aspirin and clopidogrel are stopped for non-cardiac surgery (NCS), but a paucity of data. -
Is MRSE the Source of MRSA?
Nasal carriage of methicillin-resistant coagulase negative staphylococci (MR-CoNS) was investigated in 291 adults upon hospital admission. MR-CoNS carriage was present in 19.2% of patients. SCCmec type IV was found in 22% of the Co-NS isolated, and sequencing revealed extensive structural homology between SCCmec IV in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis (MRSE) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). -
Antibiotic Treatment of Urinary Tract Infections in Infants
A retrospective study of 12,333 infants < 6 months of age with urinary tract infections showed no difference in treatment failure between short-course (≤ 3 days) and long-course (≥ 4 days) of antibiotic therapy.