The critical care literature 2021

An emergency physician (EP) is often the first provider to evaluate, resuscitate, and manage a critically ill patient. Over the past two decades, the annual hours of critical care delivered in emergency departments across the United States has dramatically increased. During the period from 2006 to 2014, the extent of critical care pro-vided in the emergency department (ED) to critically ill patients increased approximately 80%. During the same time period, the number of intubated patients cared for in the ED increased by approximately 16%. In ad-dition to seeing more critically ill patients, EPs are often tasked with providing critical care long beyond the initial resuscitation period. Prolonged ED boarding times for critically ill patients is associated with increased duration of mechanical ventilation, increased intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay, increased hospital length of stay, in-creased medication-related adverse events, and increased in-hospital, 30-day, and 90-day mortality. As a result, it is imperative for the EP to be knowledgeable about recent developments in resuscitation and critical care med-icine, so that the critically ill ED patient care receive current evidence-based care. These articles have been se-lected based on the authors review of key critical care, resuscitation, emergency medicine, and medicine journals and their opinion of the importance of study findings as it pertains to the care of the critically ill ED patient. Topics covered in this article include cardiac arrest, post-cardiac arrest care, rapid sequence intubation, mechanical ventilation, fluid resuscitation, cardiogenic shock, transfusions, and sepsis.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

An emergency physician plays a crucial role in evaluating and managing critically ill patients. With the increasing demand for critical care in emergency departments, it is essential for EPs to stay updated with the latest developments in resuscitation and critical care medicine to provide evidence-based care and avoid adverse outcomes associated with prolonged boarding times.