Multidisciplinary care for tracheostomy patients: a systematic review.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Appropriate care for patients with tracheostomies in hospital settings is an important issue. Each year more than 7000 patients receive tracheostomies in Australia and New Zealand alone. Many of these tracheostomy patients commence their care in the intensive care unit (ICU) and once stabilised are then transferred to a general ward. Insufficient skills and experience of staff caring for tracheostomy patients may lead to sub-optimal care and increased morbidity. The purpose of this review was to identify whether multidisciplinary tracheostomy outreach teams enable the reduction in time to decannulation and length of stay in acute and sub-acute settings, improve quality of care or decrease adverse events for patients with a tracheostomy.

Methods

We included all r

SUBMITTER: Garrubba M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2811928 | biostudies-literature | 2009

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature