Critical Care Commons^™

Quality Improvement For Patients With Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome Starts With An Evaluation Tool, Jessica Bass

Doctoral Projects

Patients with alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS) have adverse outcomes to the traditional methods of assessing for and treating withdrawal within the intensive care unit (ICU), which includes a standardized treatment plan. Some negative outcomes include acquiring costly and dangerous hospital-acquired infections, safety concerns, and traumatic experiences that deter further treatment. More individualized assessments and treatments are needed to prevent or decrease the severity of AWS from occurring in critical care settings, which will facilitate more positive outcomes and experiences for the staff and patients. The Minnesota detoxification scale has been shown to be a more appropriate tool for the critical …

Implementation Of Trauma Service Guideline For The Use Of Phenobarbital In The Management Of The Non-Icu Trauma Patient At Risk Or Experiencing Severe Alcohol Withdrawal, Joseph Rappold, Julianne Ontengco, Stephen Tyzik, Suneela Nayak, Ruth Hanselman, Amy Sparks

Operational Transformation

The trauma service in a large academic tertiary medical center admits a large proportion of patients with the secondary diagnosis of alcohol use disorder. Given the successful use of phenobarbital in the critical care unit for withdrawal prophylaxis and treatment of acute withdrawal, a quality improvement project was established to create and implement guidelines for the non ICU patient.

A root cause analysis demonstrated several issues to include inconsistent clinical decision documentation. As a result, several countermeasures were initiated to address the various issues.

Post implementation of countermeasures, a decrease in the amount of severe alcohol withdrawal as well as …