Intensive Care Unit

New faculty Makayla Cordoza will work with VUMC patients to assess their quality of sleep before and during hospitalization, to better understand how to prevent ICU delirium. Read More

Team members serving COVID-19 inpatients were more densely connected, interacting far more than their medical ICU counterparts. Read More

For patients in pediatric intensive care who are at high risk for acute kidney injury (AKI), giving clinicians automated decision support during the electronic order entry process increased the rate of blood testing for AKI by 9%. Read More

The cognitive impairment that affects patients who survive a stay in the ICU does not appear to have a similar mechanism to Alzheimer’s disease, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered. Read More

With other risk factors held equal, children who received a benzodiazepine sedative drug were nearly three times more likely to experience delirium – confused thought – the following day. Read More

Facilitated reporting of medication-related events in the intensive care unit can provide opportunities for optimizing quality of care and patient safety. Read More

A team of investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) wants to improve patient outcomes in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) settings by silencing audible medical alarms in hospital rooms. Read More

The phrase “working twice as hard for half as much” is one that sadly rings true for many patients who have had significant stays in an intensive care unit (ICU). Surviving a lengthy critical care experience can result in depression, weakness, fatigue and other cognitive and physical deficiencies. Read More

In a first-of-its-kind study of veterans and civilians, researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center found that one in 10 patients is at risk of having a new post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following their time in the intensive care unit (ICU). Read More

Quinton Smith doesn’t remember much of what happened one Sunday evening last March. He was disoriented, unable to stand and could not even recognize his girlfriend’s face after she returned home from work. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers have found that bathing critically ill patients with disposable chlorhexidine cloths did not decrease the incidence of health care-associated infections when compared to less expensive nonantimicrobial cloths, according to a study appearing online in JAMA this week. Read More

Patients who suffer a longer duration of delirium in the intensive care unit are more likely to experience long-term disability after discharge. Read More

In the latest VUCast: ICU patients are leaving hospitals with a dementia-like disease; What’s the fate of the Republican Party?; Hear from Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Distinguished Visiting Professor Jon Meacham; and It's time to celebrate -- the Rate My Professor 2013 rankings are in. All this and more in Vanderbilt’s online newscast. Watch now. Read More

A recent Vanderbilt study shows a significant number of patients are entering I.C.U.’s throughout the world with no evidence of cognitive — brain related issues, but are leaving with symptoms associated with mild Alzheimer’s or Traumatic Brain Injury. Barb Cramer has more. Read More

Study suggests that the “kynurenine” biochemical pathway could be a target for reducing delirium and coma in critically ill patients. Read More