Innovation: Establish formal weekly discussions of patients with prolonged PICU stay to reduce healthcare providers' moral distress and decreases length of stay for patients with lifethreatening illnesses.Evaluation: Pre/post intervention design measuring provider moral distress and comparing patient outcomes using retrospective historical controls.Setting: Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in a quaternary care Children's Hospital.
Participants: Physicians and nurses on staff in the unit.Patients: There were 60 patients in the interventional and 66 patients in the historical control group.Intervention: Over a year, weekly meetings (PEACE rounds) to establish goals of care for patients with longer than 10 days length of stay in the ICU.
Results:Moral distress scores measured intermittently with the MDT fluctuated. "Clinical situations" represented the most frequent contributing factor to moral distress. Post intervention, overall MDS-R scores were lower for respondents in all categories (non-significant), and on three specific items (significant). Patient outcomes before and after PEACE intervention showed a statistically significant decrease in PRISM indexed LOS (4.94 control vs 3.37 PEACE, p=0.015), a statistically significant increase in both code status changes DNR (11% control, 28% PEACE, p=0.013), and in-hospital death (9% control, 25% PEACE, p=0.015), with no change in patient 30 or 365 day mortality.
Conclusion:The addition of a clinical ethicist and senior intensivist to weekly interprofessional team meetings facilitates difficult conversations regarding realistic goals of care. The PEACE
Thiamine plays a critical role in energy metabolism. Critically ill children and adults may develop thiamine deficiency with ultimately increased mortality due to potentially irreversible consequences of severe type B lactic acidosis. We report a case of an unvaccinated term neonate with malignant pertussis requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and continuous renal replacement therapy, who developed profound lactic acidosis of unknown etiology. After countless evaluations for likely causes, the patient was ultimately determined to have thiamine deficiency and her acidosis resolved rapidly with vitamin supplementation.
Futility disputes in the intensive care unit setting have received significant attention in the literature over the past several years. Although the idea of improving communication in an attempt to resolve these challenging situations has been regularly discussed, the concept and role of trust building as the means by which communication improves and disputes are best navigated is largely absent. We take this opportunity to review the current literature on futility disputes and argue the important role of broken trust in these encounters, highlighting current evidence establishing the necessity and utility of trust in both medical decision-making and effective communication. Finally, we propose a futility dispute navigation model built upon improved communication through trust building.
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