More than 165 healthcare providers attended a full-day conference at NJHA on “hot button” critical care issues and creative strategies on how to tackle new and emerging critical care challenges.
The program included a presentation by Dr. Lewis Rubinson, from the University of Maryland Medical Center R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, on the implementation of a critical care resuscitation unit – the first of its kind in the United States.
Dr. Rubinson explained how his team took approaches from the trauma department and employed them in a six-bed unit, where the breadth and depth of the nurses and physicians allows critical patients of any kind to be stabilized, resuscitated and moved to the appropriate unit or operating room much more efficiently. In one year, the critical care resuscitation unit, which accepts transfers from hospitals around the state, can treat 1,800 patients.
Other presenters included:
- Todd Rice, from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, who reviewed the latest guidelines on nutritional support therapy in the adult critically ill patient
- Wesley Ely, from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who described how to operationalize the ICU Liberation ABCDEF Bundle
- Clareen Wiencek, PhD, RN, immediate-past president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, who examined a new decade in palliative care in the critically ill patient
- Lori Dambaugh, DNP, CNS, RN, from St. John Fisher College, who led a discussion on the progressive care and needs of the obese patient population in critical care
- David Kaufman, from the University of Rochester Medical Center, who engaged in an interactive dialogue on moral and ethical issues in the ICU.
Attendees represented a diverse group of physicians, nurses, doctors of pharmacy and allied health professionals. The symposium was presented free of charge through the New Jersey Hospital Improvement Innovation Network.
