Revolutionary study: Intensive care medicine can stop multi-organ failure!

Revolutionary study: Intensive care medicine can stop multi-organ failure!

There are new bright spots in the field of intensive care medicine! Johanna Watson, a talented doctoral student at the Clinic for Operative Intensive Care Medicine and Intermediate Care at the RWTH Aachen University Hospital, has impressively shown with her comparative study how important the systematic testing of medicines is. Her research aims to prevent impending multi-organ failure in surgical intensive care patients and was recently awarded first place in the DIVI Research Prize in the clinical research category. This prize is endowed with 4,000 euros and was awarded at the DIVI25 annual congress in Hamburg, reports the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) and emphasizes that Watson's work highlights the need to better integrate pharmacological expertise into treatment.

A central element of their study was the use of the FASTHUG-MAIDENS checklist. This expanded version of the classic FASTHUG protocol covers important aspects of drug management, including optimization of analgesia, sedation, thromboembolism prophylaxis and blood glucose control. In her retrospective single-center study, Watson examined 117 surgical intensive care patients and made comparisons between an intervention group with weekly pharmaceutical medical visits and a control group without such visits. The results clearly show that standardized pharmaceutical structures can increase patient safety.

Importance of pharmaceutical care

The study also highlights a serious problem: the risk of morbidity and mortality increases in patients who take multiple medications - so-called polypharmacy. In Germany, the integration of pharmacists into multidisciplinary teams and their participation in ward rounds is particularly important, as international studies show. A comprehensive analysis shows that only 35.3% of German intensive care units have established regular pharmaceutical care. Despite the proven positive impact on patient safety, this is a small number, reports studies on the subject and calls for better implementation of this important measure.

In addition to Watson's work, other outstanding projects were also recognized at the DIVI Congress. Simon Winzer from the University Hospital of Dresden received second place for his optimization of stroke treatment. Third place went to PD Dr. Dominique Engel from the University Hospital of Bern for his preoperative muscle training, followed by Dr. Bengi Su Tavris Göcebe from Heidelberg University Hospital, who scored points with his project on urine profiling in sepsis-associated acute kidney failure.

A look into the future

Johanna Watson is sure that further prospective multicenter studies are necessary to verify and substantiate the results of her work. The importance of structured pharmaceutical care is evident. In order to increase patient safety, it is important to create even more awareness of the role of clinical pharmacy and how it can be used in a multidisciplinary team.

The advances in intensive care medicine are not only encouraging, but also an incentive for everyone working to improve patient care. Collaboration between doctors, nurses and pharmacists must be promoted to ensure optimal decision-making in therapy.