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Patient and Family Support
One-Hour Concurrent Session

Caring for Patients, Families, and Each Other: Humanizing ICU Care for All

Sunday, February 23, 2025
3:15pm – 4:15pm Eastern Time
Location: W311A
CE: 1

The inability to speak, eat, and sleep in the ICU is traumatic and dehumanizing for patients and is tied to loss of personhood. Vulnerability to dehumanization exists in all phases of illness, recovery, and dying. For the ICU clinician, the combination of fast-paced technology, information overload, high patient volume, and ethical dilemmas can lead to exhaustion and burnout. Critical care medicine has improved survival, but the patient experience remains traumatic. Survivors often have deficits in physical function, cognition, mental health, and social relationships. Humanized care is for everyone—patients, families, and clinicians. Key aspects of humanizing critical care stem from Proyecto-HUI in Spain in 2014: a) open ICU and visiting policies, b) facilitating communication among clinicians and patients/families, c) patient well-being, d) family participation, e) caring for healthcare professionals, f) preventing and monitoring post-intensive care syndrome, g) humanized architecture, and h) end-of-life care. Speakers will discuss humanized care, including barriers, the role of the ICU Liberation Bundle (A-F), and how to create a humane ICU environment. Communication barriers in routine care for culturally diverse patient populations will be reviewed. Could ICU diaries be used in routine care?

View more information in SCCM's Critical Care Literature Guide.

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Learn more about ICU Liberation.

Learning Objectives:

  • Identify key elements of humanized care in the ICU
  • Detail strategies for overcoming language and cultural barriers in the ICU
  • Identify opportunities and goals in bundle implementation

Presentations:

  • 3:20pm – 3:35pm Eastern Time
    Humanizing ICU Care: A Focus on Updates From the Latest PADIS Guidelines

    Kim Lewis (she/her/hers) – McMaster University

  • 3:35pm – 3:50pm Eastern Time
    Bridging Gaps in the ICU: Strategies for Language and Cultural Humility

    Amelia Barwise, MB, BCh, BAO,PhD (she/her/hers) – Mayo Clinic

  • 3:50pm – 4:10pm Eastern Time
    Enhancing Bundle Adherence Through Quality Improvement

    Erika L. Setliff, APRN, DNP, CNS, FCCM – Atrium Health