The National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NIH/NHLBI) has awarded a three-year, $1.2 million R01 grant to Michele Balas, PhD, RN , CCRN-K, FCCM, FAAN, associate professor in The Ohio State University College of Nursing. This R01 will fund a research study entitled, “Determinants of Implementation Success Coordinating Ventilator, Early Ambulation and Rehabilitation Efforts in the ICU (DISCOVER-ICU).” Collaborators on the grant include Alai Tan, PhD, (Co-I) and Lorraine Mion, PhD, RN, FAAN, (Co-I) of The Ohio State University College of Nursing; Brenda T. Pun, DNP, RN (Co-I), Eduard E. Vasilevskis, MD, MPH, FHM (Co-I), and E. Wesley Ely, MD, MPH (consultant), of Vanderbilt University; and Lori A. Harmon, RRT, MBA (Co-I), of the Society of Critical Care Medicine.
“This study addresses the need to improve the care and outcomes of the millions of patients admitted to U.S. intensive care units (ICUs) annually,” Balas stated. “Persons experiencing an illness severe enough to require an ICU stay frequently experience profound physical, mental and cognitive health impairments that may persist for months to years after hospital discharge.
“Evidence demonstrates these clinical outcomes improve when integrated, interprofessional, evidence-based approaches to symptom management, mechanical ventilation and physical mobility are applied,” Balas continued. “One such approach, the ABCDEF bundle, has been associated in previous studies with lower ICU and hospital mortality rates, fewer days spent on mechanical ventilation, fewer days spent in physical restraints and lower odds of delirium and coma. Despite these proven benefits, the ABCDEF bundle has yet to be widely adopted in everyday ICU care.”
In the NIH-funded study, Balas and her team will continue their three-year partnership with the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s ICU Liberation Collaborative. The overall objective of the research is to develop multilevel implementation strategies to enhance sustainable adoption of the ABCDEF bundle in routine ICU practice. The team is particularly interested in discovering how various patient-, provider-, and organization-level characteristics and implementation strategies effect ABCDEF bundle adoption.
The results of this work aim to lead directly to the development of implementation strategies that are adaptable, responsive to the needs of the critical care community and accountable for the cultural and organizational factors necessary to increase ABCDEF bundle adoption.
“Our team is thrilled to lead this important line of investigation. We firmly believe that better integration of the evidence-based ABCDEF bundle has the potential to substantially reduce the short- and long-term physical, cognitive and emotional burden critical illness imposes on critically ill adults and their family members.”
Tate awarded NIH/NIA grant
The National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging (NIH/NIA) has awarded a two-year, $312,000 grant to fund the study, “A Problem Solving Intervention for Post-ICU Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults.”
The grant was awarded to Judith Tate, PhD, RN (PI), assistant professor in The Ohio State University College of Nursing. Co-investigators include Lorraine C. Mion, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Alai Tan, PhD, of the College of Nursing, and Jennifer Bogner, PhD, ABPP, FACRM, of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the College of Medicine. The grant will run from April 15, 2019, to March 31, 2021.
“Older adults comprise more than half of all intensive care unit (ICU) days and are at risk of delirium, a common acute brain impairment associated with increased risk for dementia and altered trajectories of cognitive recovery,” the grant proposal states. “The purpose of this pilot study is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and early efficacy of a problem-solving intervention, Post Intensive Care Unit Problem Solving (PIC-UPS) in the home setting for older adult ICU survivors suffering from post-ICU cognitive impairment.”
