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Updated: Jun 4, 2026

Monitoring Lung Function with Electrical Impedance Tomography in the Intensive Care Unit
Published on: September 6, 2024
It takes an intensivist
Lora Z Silverman1, L Marco Hoesel, Aken Desai
1St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ann Arbor, MI 48106, USA.
Background:
Our institution initiated the implementation of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines in 2006. We hypothesize that the addition of a surgical intensivist improved results more than the implementation of the guidelines alone.
Methods:
We collected data on 273 patients who were admitted to the surgical intensive care unit for sepsis. The groups were divided into pre-bundle, n = 19; bundle, n = 186; and bundle-plus, n = 68, to denote the method by which the patients were treated for sepsis.
Results:
There was no difference in age or sex between groups. There was a statistically significant decrease in length of stay (LOS) between the 3 groups, and in mortality between the bundle and bundle-plus treatment groups (P < .01). In addition, there was an average cost savings between each group.
Conclusions:
Implementation of evidence-based guidelines decreased LOS and decreased cost in our surgical intensive care unit. By adding the expertise of a surgical intensivist, we reduced LOS, cost, and relative risk of death even further than using the guidelines alone.
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