A team from the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit that completed the IHQSE Improvement Academy recently launched their SOAR (Sedation Off, Awake, Rehabilitate) initiative which is aimed at weaning patients off deep sedation sooner to mitigate adverse outcomes related to prolonged sedation periods. The intervention allowed the team to mobilize one of its most critical patients on ECMO. We spoke with Dr. Mikita Fuchita, one of the doctors spearheading this initiative to learn more about the SOAR initiative and its impact.

The cycle of workplace violence in healthcare facilities is detrimental to providers as well as patients. IHQSE Faculty Katie Raffel, MD, along with Jenica Cimino, and Lyza Hilton, RN, discuss how trauma-informed transformations may help to reduce violent episodes in hospitals on MedPage Today’s KevinMD.

IHQSE Alum Candice Kmetz-Parkinson was recently featured on Colorado's 9NEWS discussing UCHealth's new Virtual Respiratory Therapist program that is helping to streamline workflow and get patients off ventilators sooner.

Andrea Prinzi, Ph.D., MPH, a member of the 2020 cohort of the IHQSE Certificate Training Program published their work in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, showing that endotracheal aspirate cultures commonly overreport lower respiratory tract infections due to contamination, often resulting in excess antimicrobial therapy.