A bstract Background Medication error in developed countries is of primary concern when there is a question of adversity to a patient's health, but in developing countries like India, it is just a term and its significance is undervalued. The incidence of medication error is essential to estimate the proper medical care provided in the healthcare system. Objective The main objective of the study is to determine the incidences of medication error in critical care unit and to evaluate its risk outcomes. Materials and methods This is a prospective observational study conducted over a period of 6 months in a critical care unit of a tertiary care hospital. Medication chart review method was opted for data collection. The medication errors were mainly classified as prescription, transcription, indenting, dispensing, and administration error. A total of 6,705 charts were reviewed. The NCCMERP risk index was used to evaluate the outcome of errors. Results Of the total 6,705 charts, 410 medication errors were found, i.e., 6.11%. The most common error is transcription error that constitutes 44.1% of the total errors, followed by prescription error 40%, and administration error 14%. The frequency of indenting and dispensing errors is negligible with 1.5% and 0.5%, respectively. The main causes of medication errors are due to incomplete prescription 50.2% and wrong doses 22.9%. In drug class, antibiotics and antihypertensive agents are most prone to medication error. About 87.1% errors belonged to the Category B of National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention risk index. Conclusion Majority of the errors are transcription errors followed by prescription and administration errors. Consultant doctors have to be more vigilant during prescribing and verifying the medication charts. Clinical pharmacists should act as a checkpoint at each step of medication process to identify and prevent medication errors. How to cite this article Zirpe KG, Seta B, Gholap S, Aurangabadi K, Gurav SK, Deshmukh AM, et al. Incidence of Medication Error in Critical Care Unit of a Tertiary Care Hospital: Where Do We Stand? Indian J Crit Care Med 2020;24(9):799–803.

A bstract Background Severe acute respiratory distress syndrome associated with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) (CARDS) pneumonitis presents a clinical challenge as regards to the timing of intubation and ambiguity of outcome. There is a lack of clear consensus on when to switch patients from trials of noninvasive therapies to invasive mechanical ventilation. We investigated the effect of the timing of intubation from the time of admission on the clinical outcome of CARDS. Aim and objective The aim and objective was to analyze the effect of timing of intubation early (within 48 hours of admission to critical care unit) versus delayed (after 48 hours of admission to critical care unit) on mortality in severe CARDS patients. Materials and methods A retrospective observational study performed in a 28-bedded COVID-19 intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital in Pune, India. All patients admitted between April 1, 2020, and October 15, 2020, with confirmed COVID-19 (RT-PCR positive) requiring mechanical ventilation were included in the study. Results The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. Among 2,230 patients that were admitted to the hospital, 525 required critical care (23.5%), invasive mechanical ventilation was needed in 162 patients and 147 (28%) of critical care admission were included in the study cohort after exclusion. Seventy-five patients (51%) were intubated within 48 hours of critical care admission (early group) and 72 (48.9%) were intubated after 48 hours of critical care admission (delayed group). With regards to the total of 147 included patients; male patients were 74.1% with a median age of 59 years (interquartile range, 51–68 years). Diabetes (44.9%) and hypertension (43.5%) were the most common comorbidities. Higher admission acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II scores and lower absolute lymphocyte count were observed in patients intubated within 48 hours. The early intubated group had a mortality of 60% whereas the same was observed as 77.7% in delayed intubation group, and this difference was statistically significant ( p = 0.02). C onclusion Current study concludes that early intubation is associated with improved survival rates in severe CARDS patients. How to cite this article Zirpe KG, Tiwari AM, Gurav SK, Deshmukh AM, Suryawanshi PB, Wankhede PP, et al. Timing of Invasive Mechanical Ventilation and Mortality among Patients with Severe COVID-19-associated Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Indian J Crit Care Med 2021;25(5):493–498.

BackgroundMucormycosis has been identified with increasing frequency in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Background: COVID-19 has created enormous health crisis in India due to limited available treatments. Majority of the physicians use sepsis as a prototype to understand the pathophysiology of COVID-19 as there are similarities. Heat-killed Mycobacterium w (Mw) (Inj. Mw®) is a known immunomodulator, which is approved for the treatment of gram-negative sepsis. This observational study was aimed to evaluate the role of Mw along with standard of care (SOC) in critically ill COVID-19 patients. Methods: Total 448 patients’ data (intervention group: 298 in Mw plus SOC vs 150 in SOC alone) with reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) confirmed critically ill COVID-19 patients who were admitted at five tertiary care centers were evaluated. They were observed for changes in laboratory [C-reactive protein (CRP), D-dimer, ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and interleukin-6 (IL-6)] parameters, hospital stay, intensive care unit (ICU) stay, and discharge status after giving 0.3 mL intradermal Mw for 3 consecutive days along with SOC during hospitalization. Standard of care included injectable steroids, remdesivir, and heparin. Data were analyzed using STATA 14.2 (StataCorp., College Station, Texas, USA). Results: In baseline characteristics, Mw plus SOC arm had more critically ill patients as seen by higher high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) score, higher lab values [CRP, ferritin, D-dimer, LDH, creatinine, alanine aminotransferase (ALT)], and more oxygen requirement as compared to SOC alone. Mycobacterium w arm had significantly higher mortality rate in ICU and hospital. Both hospital stay and ICU stay were longer in Mw arm. However, subgroup analysis found that early initiation of Mw (<3 days vs >3 days) was associated with significantly lesser odds of mortality and lesser odds of intubation requirement. Early initiation of Mw (<3 days vs >3 days) also resulted in significantly lesser duration of stay in the ICU along with reduction of CRP, D-dimer, and LDH. Moreover, further analysis of early initiation of Mw (<3 days vs control) resulted in significant reduction in lab values (procalcitonin, CRP, ferritin, LDH, and D-dimer). Conclusion: Mw when added to SOC was found to associate with significantly increased risk of mortality and increased length of hospital stay. However, time since admission to administration of Mw was a significant predictor of in-ICU deaths in multivariate analysis. Early initiation of Mw (<3 days) was observed to be a protective factor against ICU deaths from the multivariate logistic regression model. However, large randomized controlled trials are required to support the same.

-The concept of heat exchangers plays a major role in the refrigeration and air conditioning system.This project discusses about the parallel flow and counter flow heat exchanger using LMTD and NTU effectiveness method. The main objective of this project is to calculate theoretical parameters of heat exchanger like Effectiveness, Area, Inlet and outlet temperatures, Log mean temperature difference (LMTD), Number of Transfer units (NTU), by using concepts of OOPs & java. To calculate this all parameters java program is done on the parallel and counter flow heat exchanger.