Recommendations of the Working Groups from the Spanish Society of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine and Coronary Units (SEMICYUC) for the management of adult critically ill patients. / Recomendaciones para el tratamiento de los pacientes críticos de los Grupos de Trabajo de la Sociedad Española de Medicina Intensiva, Crítica y Unidades Coronarias (SEMICYUC).

The standardization of the Intensive Care Medicine may improve the management of the adult critically ill patient. However, these strategies have not been widely applied in the Intensive Care Units (ICUs). The aim is to elaborate the recommendations for the standardization of the treatment of critical patients. A panel of experts from the thirteen working groups (WG) of the Spanish Society of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine and Coronary Units (SEMICYUC) was selected and nominated by virtue of clinical expertise and/or scientific experience to carry out the recommendations. Available scientific literature in the management of adult critically ill patients from 2002 to 2016 was extracted. The clinical evidence was discussed and summarised by the experts in the course of a consensus finding of every WG and finally approved by the WGs after an extensive internal review process that was carried out between December 2015 and December 2016. A total of 65 recommendations were developed, of which 5 corresponded to each of the 13 WGs. These recommendations are based on the opinion of experts and scientific knowledge, and are intended as a guide for the intensivists in the management of critical patients.

Results of a multi-faceted educational intervention to prevent peripheral venous catheter-associated bloodstream infections.

Peripheral venous catheter-associated bloodstream infections (PVC-BSIs) lead to prolonged hospitalization, morbidity and increased costs. The impact of infection-prevention measures on the rate of PVC-BSIs in a university hospital in Spain was assessed. An active surveillance programme was initiated in 2015, which revealed a high PVC-BSI incidence ratio (0.48/1000 patient-days). A bundle aimed at nurses, medical staff and patients was implemented, and a Catheter Infection Team (CIT) was set up. The intervention achieved a decrease in PVC-BSI rate: 0.34 in 2016, 0.29 in 2017, and 0.17 in 2018. The decline was greatest for Gram-negative PVC-BSIs (67.6% in 2015, 35.3% in 2018).