Vininder Bains: "Fever in Critical Care"

06/18/21 • 50 min

There is no simple answer to the question of “should we treat fever and how?” Fever is a potent immune response that can be protective for some ICU patients, especially when therapeutic options are limited. Fever also comes at a significant metabolic cost, which critically ill patients may, or may not be able to tolerate. I will review the physiology of fever, discuss the costs, benefits of fever in adult critically ill populations, present available fever management strategies. While there is no simple answer, we can make more informed decisions about how and when to treat fever in critical illness.

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Ged Williams: "Intensive Care Outreach Nurse Implementation"

The intensive care outreach nurse (ICON) is known by many names. Essentially, this is an ICU nurse with exceptional assessment, communication, problem solving and bedside teaching skills whose primary role is to respond to and support the bedside nurses (and doctors) caring for the deteriorating patient. Much is known about the benefits of such roles, but little is described regarding how to set them up. This talk focuses on the latter using a case study of how the role was implemented in the UAE into 4 teaching hospitals concurrently.

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Prof. Louise Rose: "Virtual family visiting – Life Lines as an example of rapid innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic"

In this presentation I will present the story of the rapid development, scaling and sustaining of the LifeLines virtual visiting philanthropic innovation over the pandemic. I will discuss the impact on family and clinicians of visiting restrictions necessitated by the pandemic. I will also highlight the growing body of evidence for virtual visiting including unanticipated benefits. Finally, I will discuss considerations for how to optimise the delivery of virtual visiting, both during ongoing visiting restrictions and as a routine option for ICU families.