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Category: Crisis Management

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ICU Readiness Assessment: We Are Not Prepared for COVID-19

Nearly 5000 U.S. intensive care unit (ICU) clinicians say that their ICUs are not prepared for the potential onslaught of COVID-19 patients. According to the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s (SCCM) ICU Readiness Assessment, their specific concerns range from shortages of supplies and staff, patient surge and overcrowding, and personal protective equipment.


A Shot in The Dark: COVID-19 Vaccine Update

A January 8, 2021, SCCM webcast focusing on COVD-19 vaccination served as a primer for healthcare professionals who will be among the first to receive vaccines.


SCCM Ukraine Response

SCCM stands with the people of Ukraine and is poised to offer as much support as possible.


Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Response

SCCM offers these free resources to help during natural disasters.


United States Resource Availability for COVID-19

With the onset of COVID-19, and the strong possibility of large percentages of the U.S. population being admitted to the hospital and intensive care unit (ICU), the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) has updated its statistics on critical care resources available in the United States.


Supply Chain Management During Outbreaks and Disasters

Review best practices for supply chain management of equipment, supplies, medications, and staffing shortages.


SCCM President-Elect to Fast-Track COVID-19 Testing

SCCM's president-elect Greg S. Martin, MD, MSc, FCCM, is among the experts tapped to lead a national effort to super-charge the innovation, development, and commercialization of a COVID-19 testing by fall 2020.


Clinicians Report High Stress in COVID-19 Response

Critical care clinicians are feeling increased personal stress about COVID-19 and are especially worried about infecting loved ones, while also expressing continued concern about personal protective equipment (PPE) and staffing shortages, according to a rapid-cycle survey from SCCM.


SCCM Pod-416 COVID-19 Learning: Multiple Patients on a Single Ventilator

In a situation where ventilators are in short supply, multiple patients on a single ventilator could be a strategy of last resort. In this podcast, Arthur S. Slutsky, MD, discusses his article "Personalized Ventilation to Multiple Patients Using a Single Ventilator: Description and Proof of Concept" (Han J, et al. Crit Care Explor. 2020;2:e0118). A figure included in the article will provide a valuable visual aid to listeners.

Dr. Slutsky will discuss publishing information he hopes no one will ever have to use, but he encourages institutions to practice and test the proof of concept as an exercise in emergency preparedness.

The concept may also have benefit for resource-limited areas. Beyond the complexity of building the circuits, challenges related to alarms, infection control, and other complexities must also be considered.

"In a time of crisis where resources are limited, we introduce a system of multiple secondary breathing circuits driven by a ventilator in preference to that of simply splitting the breathing circuits, which has been shown to raise multiple risks for patients," he writes.

Dr. Slutsky is vice president or research at St. Michael's Hospital and professor of medicine, surgery, and biomedical engineering at University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada.


SCCM Pod-415 NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines

The National Institutes of Health has released Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines. SCCM members Craig M. Coopersmith, MD, FACS, MCCM; Amy L. Dzierba, PharmD, FCCP, BCCCP; and Greg S. Martin, MD, MS, FCCM, served on the guidelines development panel after being invited by Anthony S. Fauci, MD, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

They talk with host Margaret M. Parker, MD, MCCM, about the major critical care recommendations, how these guidelines differ from the Surviving Sepsis COVID-19 guidelines, future updates, and more.


SCCM Pod-414 COVID-19 VIRUS Registry Aims to Identify Effective Treatment Strategies

Discovery, the Critical Care Research Network's Viral Infection and Respiratory Illness Universal Study creates a real-time COVID-19 registry of current ICU and hospital care patterns.

Explore the pressing need for this study, its current status and future goals, how it differs from other large registry datasets, and more (Walkey A, et al. Crit Care Explor. 2020;2:e0113) with host Ashish K. Khanna, MD, FCCP, FCCM, and co-principal investigator Allan J. Walkey, MD, MSc. Learn more about the registry.

Dr. Walkey is an associate professor at Boston University School of Medicine in the section of pulmonary, allergy, sleep, and critical care medicine in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.


SCCM Pod-325 Pediatric Triage in a Severe Pandemic

Margaret Parker, MD, MCCM, speaks with Christine Gall, DrPH, about the article, “Pediatric Triage in a Severe Pandemic: Maximizing Survival by Establishing Triage Thresholds,” published in the September 2016 issue of Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Gall is a System Director for Performance Improvement in Patient Experience for SCL Health, a nine hospital system based in Denver, Colorado. In this article, Dr. Gall and coauthors explore the topic of how to achieve optimal population survival during a mass casualty pandemic that overwhelms pediatric critical care resources despite surge capacity efforts.


SCCM Pod-242 Preparing for Emerging Infections

Margaret Parker, MD, MCCM, speaks with the Society of Critical Care Medicine President-Elect, Craig Coopersmith, MD, FCCM, and Jay Varkey, MD, about the Ebola epidemic and how clinicians should be preparing for emerging infections. Dr. Coopersmith is Professor of Surgery at Emory in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Varkey was on a team of clinicians at Emory who successfully treated an American missionary and doctor with Ebola. He is Assistant Professor of Medicine in Infectious Disease and serves as the Director of the Antimicrobial Management Program and Associate Hospital Epidemiologist at Emory University Hospital.


SCCM Pod-234: Pediatric Intensive Care in South Africa: Making Optimum Use of Limited Resources

Margaret Parker, MD, FCCM, speaks with Andrew Argent, MD, Medical Director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, about his article published in the January Pediatric Critical Care Medicine titled, “Pediatric Intensive Care in South Africa: Making Optimum Use of Limited Resources at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital.” Dr. Argent discusses the admission policy his PICU set in place for pediatrics in a country with limited healthcare resources.


SCCM Pod-173 PCCM: Pediatric Lessons from Haiti Earthquake

Ericka L. Fink, MD, discusses her latest article published in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, titled "Intensive Care for Infants and Children in Haiti in April 2010."  Fink is an assistant professor of pediatric critical care medicine at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and Scientist at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.


What are your experiences with triaging patients in the ICU at your institution?

Questions from social media, blogs and the various discussion forums, including the new SCCM COVID-19 Discussion Group, were answered.


Scaled Pandemic Preparedness: From Large Medical Center to Community Hospital - What Do You Need To Do?

The webcast covered how to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic, with lessons learned from hospitals in the Houston area that already established special isolation units.


Joint Statement of the Critical Care Society Collaborative to the US Congress and the Trump Administration

COVID-19 - SCCM Joint Statement. Production and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) and life-saving equipment.