Who Gets the Last Bed? A Discrete-Choice Experiment Examining General Population Preferences for Intensive Care Bed Prioritization in a Pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the key patient attributes important to members of the Australian general population when prioritizing patients for the final intensive care unit (ICU) bed in a pandemic over-capacity scenario. METHODS: A discrete-choice experiment administered online asked respondents (N = 306) to imagine the COVID-19 caseload had surged and that they were lay members of a panel tasked to allocate the final ICU bed. They had to decide which patient was more deserving for each of 14 patient pairs. Patients were characterized by 5 attributes: age, occupation, caregiver status, health prior to being infected, and prognosis. Respondents were randomly allocated to one of 7 sets of 14 pairs. Multinomial, mixed logit, and latent class models were used to model the observed choice behavior. RESULTS: A latent class model with 3 classes was found to be the most informative. Two classes valued active decision making and were slightly more likely to choose patients with caregiving responsibilities over those without. One of these classes valued prognosis most strongly, with a decreasing probability of bed allocation for those 65 y and older. The other valued both prognosis and age highly, with decreasing probability of bed allocation for those 45 y and older and a slight preference in favor of frontline health care workers. The third class preferred more random decision-making strategies. CONCLUSIONS: For two-thirds of those sampled, prognosis, age, and caregiving responsibilities were the important features when making allocation decisions, although the emphasis varies. The remainder appeared to choose randomly.

Paracetamol induced skin blood flow and blood pressure changes in febrile intensive care patients: An observational study.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the relationship between paracetamol administration and skin blood flow (skBF) and blood pressure (BP) in critically ill patients treated for fever. DESIGN: Prospective, observational study. SETTING: Intensive care units of university teaching hospital. PATIENTS: 29 adults (17 males and 12 females), aged 58±15 years treated with enteral or intravenous paracetamol for fever. APACHE II score was 17.2±8.3 and admission classifications were 41% medical (n=12), 31% surgical (n=9), and 28% neurological intervention (n=8). Thirty healthy afebrile volunteers were also studied after ingesting 1g paracetamol. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Temperature, BP and skBF (laser Doppler flowmetry perfusion units) were recorded 15 min prior to administration of paracetamol, at administration (T0) and then for every 15 min for 60 min. Cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC=skBF/mean arterial pressure) was calculated. Thirty data sets were recorded from 29 patients. Temperature at T0 was 38.7±0.6°C. BP decreased over the study period whilst skBF and CVC increased (repeated measured ANOVA, p<.05). Systolic BP decreased significantly (p<.01) at all post-administration times and was 90±13% of T0 at 60 min. CVC was 128±48% of T0 at 60 min. Systolic BP fell by a clinically significant amount (≥15%) in 17 patients (59%) and hypotension was treated during 33% (n=10) of the observation periods. BP and skBF did not change significantly in afebrile volunteers. CONCLUSIONS: Paracetamol induced increases in skBF consistent with its antipyretic action and may be associated with significant falls in BP in the critically ill.

Assessment of the clinical utility of an ultrasonic monitor of cardiac output (the USCOM) and agreement with thermodilution measurement.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the clinical utility of an ultrasonic monitor of cardiac output (USCOM), its reliability in tracking cardiac output (CO) changes and agreement with thermodilution (TD) measurements of CO. DESIGN: Prospective comparison study. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: 55 adults undergoing thermodilution (TD) CO monitoring in a cardiothoracic or general intensive care unit between December 2006 and December 2007. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: USCOM and TD measurements of CO on two occasions in each patient were compared by Bland-Altman analysis for bias and limit of agreement. A mean percentage error <30% was considered acceptable. Per cent change in cardiac index (CI) was determined by each method. Doppler profiles obtained by the USCOM were assessed against an ideal standard ("acceptable"). RESULTS: 55 patients had measurements on 110 occasions, but Doppler waveforms were not obtained on 18 of these (16%), leaving 39 patients with paired comparisons for analysis (including 27 men; mean age, 64.7 [SD, 14.5] years). Mean TD CI was 3.4 +/-1.0L/min/m(2) (range, 2.0-6.0L/min/m(2)). The bias was 0.6L/min/m(2) (95% confidence limits [CLs], 0.4-0.8 L/min/m(2)), and the mean percentage error was 56% (95% CLs, 45%-65%). Twenty-two Doppler profiles (28%) were classed as acceptable; the mean percentage error for these was 62% (95% CLs, 38%-65%). On 15/19 occasions (74%) where TD CI changed > 15%, USCOM CI also changed >15%, but three of these changes (16%) were in the opposite direction. USCOM CI changed >15% on 9/20 occasions (45%) when TD CI did not. CONCLUSIONS: Poor agreement with TD and a substantial rate of failure to obtain an USCOM measurement suggest that this device is unsuitable as a monitoring tool in intensive care.