Failed Extubation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Neonates with younger gestational age and lower birth weight are more likely to fail extubation and to require earlier surgical airway intervention, according to an April 28 presentation by University of Texas Medical School, Houston, researchers at the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology program at the Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meeting.

Think Globally: Quality and Safety in American Medicine

The publication of two Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports-To Err is Human: Building A Safer Health System in 1999 and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century in 2001-served as a catalyst to increase awareness among health care professionals that the American health care system is beset by serious problems related to patient safety and medical errors.

Monitoring Tracheal Tube Cuff Pressures in the ICU Can Prevent Injury

“Despite increasing awareness among intensivists and respiratory therapists and more widespread use of low-pressure, high-volume cuffs, the incidence of tracheal tube cuff overinflation remains high in the contemporary American intensive care unit [ICU],” said Luc Morris, MD, from the Head and Neck Service in the Department of Otolaryngology at New York University School of Medicine during his scientific session presentation at the April 2007 meeting of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association at the Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meeting.