- Email: [email protected]
Reflections, October 2015
Journal of Critical Care 30 (2015) 865
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Critical Care journal homepage: www.jccjournal.org
Reflections, October 2015
The October issue is one of the richest in the Journal's history and provides insight into expanding areas of recent critical care interest. The new section “E-ICU/Communication” reflects developing insight into the complex interactions between the manner in which electronic adjuncts can not only affect care directly from a distance but also transcend the manner in which effective communication between patient, family member/surrogate, and provider is enhanced and becomes temporally meaningful. From quality evaluations of family experiences of intensive care unit quality (ICU) of care to perceptions of administered physiotherapy, the importance of family-facility interactions is highlighted. The importance of traditional patient-provider relationships should never be underestimated; however, the manner in which ancillary staff interact with patients and perhaps more importantly their families is becoming increasingly relevant, important, and measured as a reflection of quality of care and perception of patient and family experience. Indeed, in many cases, the family perception is increasingly important as patient acuity, and direct engagement becomes less relevant. Equally important is the increasing reliance institutions place on patient-family/surrogate interactions during specific areas of practice; for example, physiotherapy and exercise regimens, ventilator weaning protocols, reorientation programs, and occupational and physiotherapy and relearning relationships before discharge are all gaining traction and importance to help minimize the PTSD-like syndrome that affects multiple patients post-ICU discharge. Indeed, more attention is now focused on the quality of life postdischarge than on the survival statistics that have defined successes in previous years. This issue also includes a number of letters, a new section of “Rapid Communications,” and 2 key editorials: Subtle but Serious: Pulmonary Support After Cardiac Surgery and Measuring the Impact of a Pharmacist in the ICU—are all pharmacists created equal? Reader response to these sections is encouraged; please forward any comments to [email protected].
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrc.2015.07.026 0883-9441/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
It is apparent today that the field of critical care is undergoing more rapid dialectic change than seen in recent years. Globalization of disease with rapidly increasing technologic sophistication in multiple sites; wide diversity of pharmacologic availability and use; varying government regulation and evolution of practice; increasing recognition of multicultural prerogatives in end-of-life care and organ donation policies; reserve about overly enthusiastic integration and adoption of inadequately validated protocols; general availability of advanced resuscitative techniques with unknown longterm survival impact; and a variety of exciting, innovative, and promising interventions and support strategies must make the specialty vibrant; global; and, of necessity, more scrutinized by and responsible to societal and cultural prerogatives. It is important that the Journal of Critical Care understands and reflects these important changes. Editorial policy is a balanced reflection of the Journal's commitment to its represented societies—The World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine and the Society for Complex Acute Illness—and the global perspective represented by the specialty itself. Submissions, therefore, are encouraged from all disciplines represented in the critical care team, and the Journal hopes its content reflects the appropriate mix that permits discussion of important issues that reinforce the concept that “it takes a whole village to raise a child” (Igbo and Yoruba [Nigeria] Proverb http://www.afriprov. org/african-proverb-of-the-month/23-1998proverbs/137-november1998-proverb.html). Equally, it takes a global community to discuss critical care medicine's changing practice, social conscience, and future direction. I look forward to the ongoing contributions from the Journal of Critical Care's representative authorship.
Philip D. Lumb, MB, BS, MCCM Editor-in-Chief
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Critical Care journal homepage: www.jccjournal.org
Reflections, October 2015
The October issue is one of the richest in the Journal's history and provides insight into expanding areas of recent critical care interest. The new section “E-ICU/Communication” reflects developing insight into the complex interactions between the manner in which electronic adjuncts can not only affect care directly from a distance but also transcend the manner in which effective communication between patient, family member/surrogate, and provider is enhanced and becomes temporally meaningful. From quality evaluations of family experiences of intensive care unit quality (ICU) of care to perceptions of administered physiotherapy, the importance of family-facility interactions is highlighted. The importance of traditional patient-provider relationships should never be underestimated; however, the manner in which ancillary staff interact with patients and perhaps more importantly their families is becoming increasingly relevant, important, and measured as a reflection of quality of care and perception of patient and family experience. Indeed, in many cases, the family perception is increasingly important as patient acuity, and direct engagement becomes less relevant. Equally important is the increasing reliance institutions place on patient-family/surrogate interactions during specific areas of practice; for example, physiotherapy and exercise regimens, ventilator weaning protocols, reorientation programs, and occupational and physiotherapy and relearning relationships before discharge are all gaining traction and importance to help minimize the PTSD-like syndrome that affects multiple patients post-ICU discharge. Indeed, more attention is now focused on the quality of life postdischarge than on the survival statistics that have defined successes in previous years. This issue also includes a number of letters, a new section of “Rapid Communications,” and 2 key editorials: Subtle but Serious: Pulmonary Support After Cardiac Surgery and Measuring the Impact of a Pharmacist in the ICU—are all pharmacists created equal? Reader response to these sections is encouraged; please forward any comments to [email protected].
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrc.2015.07.026 0883-9441/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
It is apparent today that the field of critical care is undergoing more rapid dialectic change than seen in recent years. Globalization of disease with rapidly increasing technologic sophistication in multiple sites; wide diversity of pharmacologic availability and use; varying government regulation and evolution of practice; increasing recognition of multicultural prerogatives in end-of-life care and organ donation policies; reserve about overly enthusiastic integration and adoption of inadequately validated protocols; general availability of advanced resuscitative techniques with unknown longterm survival impact; and a variety of exciting, innovative, and promising interventions and support strategies must make the specialty vibrant; global; and, of necessity, more scrutinized by and responsible to societal and cultural prerogatives. It is important that the Journal of Critical Care understands and reflects these important changes. Editorial policy is a balanced reflection of the Journal's commitment to its represented societies—The World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine and the Society for Complex Acute Illness—and the global perspective represented by the specialty itself. Submissions, therefore, are encouraged from all disciplines represented in the critical care team, and the Journal hopes its content reflects the appropriate mix that permits discussion of important issues that reinforce the concept that “it takes a whole village to raise a child” (Igbo and Yoruba [Nigeria] Proverb http://www.afriprov. org/african-proverb-of-the-month/23-1998proverbs/137-november1998-proverb.html). Equally, it takes a global community to discuss critical care medicine's changing practice, social conscience, and future direction. I look forward to the ongoing contributions from the Journal of Critical Care's representative authorship.
Philip D. Lumb, MB, BS, MCCM Editor-in-Chief