Search

The rise in intensive care treatment procedures is accompanied by an increase in the complexity of decisions regarding the selection, administration and duration of treatment measures. Whether a treatment goal is desirable in an individual case and the treatment plan required to achieve it is acceptable for the patient depends on the patient's preferences, values and life plans. There is often uncertainty as to whether a patient-centered treatment goal can be achieved. The use of a time-limited treatment trial (TLT) as a binding agreement between the intensive care unit (ICU) team and the patient or their legal representative on a treatment concept over a defined period of time in the ICU can be helpful to reduce uncertainties and to ensure the continuation of intensive care measures in the patients' best interest., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The process recommendations of the Ethics Section of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) for ethically based decision-making in intensive care medicine are intended to create the framework for a structured procedure for seriously ill patients in intensive care. The processes require appropriate structures, e.g., for effective communication within the treatment team, with patients and relatives, legal representatives, as well as the availability of palliative medical expertise, ethical advisory committees and integrated psychosocial and spiritual care services. If the necessary competences and structures are not available in a facility, they can be consulted externally or by telemedicine if necessary. The present recommendations are based on an expert consensus and are not the result of a systematic review or a meta-analysis., Competing Interests: Die Autorinnen/Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)

Current publications on the topic of communication in intensive care units (ITS) are shaped by the experiences of the COVID19 pandemic and the restrictions on personal contact and communication experienced during this time. Virtual, computer-based and telemedical concepts have grown out of this situation with limited contact and communication possibilities with patients and their relatives, but also between the individual service providers in the health system. It can also be assumed that artificial intelligence will increasingly be an issue in communication in intensive care units in the coming years. However, the significance, consequences and risks of the use of these new possibilities remain to be seen., Competing Interests: Die Autorinnen/Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)

Competing Interests: Die Autorinnen/Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht.

Communication is one of the fundamental human needs. It includes not only expressing oneself but also verbal and nonverbal communication and establishing contact to other people. In the context of intensive care treatment, influences such as sedation, delirium or the need for an artificial airway, be it a tube or tracheostomy, can make verbal communication almost impossible. In addition, nonverbal communication possibilities are often restricted by physical weakness or illness. Despite these difficulties, there is always a communication relationship, verbal or nonverbal, between patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) and the team. A lack of willingness in the team or mistakes in communication leave patients with a perception of not being heard or not being noticed. As a result, the patients can develop an impression of powerlessness and helplessness. It is precisely in these situations of dependency that there is a risk of overriding the patient's will and exercising coercion. Communication with patients in the ICU is a challenging process. Difficulties that arise here not only burden patients in the ICU but can also lead to frustration and moral stress in the team. The team should reflect on the imbalance of influences on communication between patients and the team in order to help the patients to survive and cope with the critical period by using tools and appreciative communication., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.)

Based on shared experiences and values, the patient and their families form a relational unit. This social unity is especially valid in the situation of illness. Patients' relatives in intensive care units experience an exceptional emotional situation, associated with uncertainty, feelings of being overwhelmed, fear, and the desire for the best possible medical care. The principles of family-centered intensive care offer orientation and relief not only for the patients and their relatives, but also for the interprofessional team. Related measures, such as open visiting hours, appreciative communication, interprofessional team structures, and internal hospital standards can support all those involved in shaping and overcoming this critical situation together., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.)

The use of coercion in complex situations, such as intensive care therapy, requires special attention, as patients are in a situation of dependency and often limited self-determination. Coercion can also arise in intensive care situations, including situations where a person's natural will is overcome.Coercion as freedom-restricting, -limiting measures and forced treatment in ICUs exists in the form of formal and informal coercion and is perceived by the patient. Formal coercion includes measures such as restraints, sedation and environment. Informal coercion arises from influence, such as manipulation, inadequate or false information, lack of communication and threat.Longer-term, i. e. > 30 minutes, measures restricting or withdrawing freedom, as well as compulsory treatment, are subject to authorization.The central conflict in the use of coercion is the tension between self-determination of the patient and care, the protection of the patient from harm.In intensive care, phases of agitation, delirium, but also dementia or depressive phases, hypoactivity are commonplace in patients. The use of coercive measures in emergency situations is only possible if it has been examined according to legal and medical-ethical criteria and there are no alternatives (ultima ratio) for the use of coercion.The use of coercion as "ultima ratio" includes the verification of decision-making capacity and the assessment/examination of the critical situation. Only in exceptional cases of incapacity to consent and in the event of "imminent significant damage to health" may measures restricting or withdrawing freedom be used.Treatment in the intensive care unit is based on a current indication with medical evidence, as well as the standards and process structures. To avoid formal and informal coercion, it is crucial to establish an image of humanity in the interprofessional team that respects the patient and his autonomy and implements this in everyday life and training concepts.Concepts to be recognized and name the use of coercion and to avoid coercion include: Recognition of risk situations for coercion, standards to avoid coercion in ICUs, education and training in communication., Competing Interests: Die Autorinnen/Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)

Background: Every medical decision is based on balancing medical knowledge, ethical considerations, and patient preferences. Previous surveys have mainly covered the ethical knowledge of medical staff. The aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of an innovative concept regarding how ethical criteria are applied to clinical decision-making during critical illness., Methods: An online survey including a short case vignette was carried out at a university hospital among physicians specialising in intensive care medicine in Germany. After free text responses regarding further required case information, the participants were asked to rank decision criteria during the course of the case vignette. A qualitative evaluation was performed by two independent investigators, based on a transcription into categories. This was followed by a quantitative analysis of ranked criteria., Results: Our analysis has shown that doctors are initially inclined to consider medical information when making treatment decisions. When complications occur, ethical values are more often included in the decision-making. The qualitative evaluation reveiled that the patient's will was consistently regarded as the leading criterion for decision-making. In the quantitative evaluation, patient's well-being, quality of life, and patient autonomy were rated as the most important decision criteria. Economic factors were ranked least important., Conclusion: A mixed methods approach is able to reflect the complexity of ethical reasoning within the medical decision-making process, suggesting the feasibility of this concept., Clinical Trial Registration: The study was registered under DRKS-ID: DKRS00011905 (April 2017)., (© 2022 The Authors.)

The treatment situation in intensive care is characterised by a specific asymmetry in the relationship between patients and the team: Patients are particularly dependent on their environment and often show impaired consciousness and capacity to consent. This facilitates the use of coercion or enables and/or provokes it. The aim of this recommendation is to show ways to recognise patients with their wishes and needs and to integrate them into treatment concepts in the intensive care unit in order to reduce and avoid coercion whenever possible. The recommendation shows the variety of possible forms of coercion and discusses the moral standards to be considered in the ethical weighing process as well as legal conditions for justifying its use. It becomes obvious that treatment measures which may involve the use of coercion always require a careful and self-critical review of the measures in relation to the indication and the therapeutic goal. The recommendation's intention therefore is not to disapprove the use of coercion by interprofessional teams. Instead, it aims to contribute to a sensitive perception of coercion and to a critical and caring approach to formal and especially informal (indirect) coercion., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.)

Decisions with considerable medical and ethical implications are made in emergency departments every day. Despite time pressure and high workloads, they have to be arrived at in an expert manner in all dimensions. For immediate ethical decisions, structuring the decision-making process in the form of standard procedures can be helpful, provided that they are trained and practiced in an interdisciplinary and interprofessional manner. The support for ad hoc ethical decisions presented here recommends an "ethical team time out" for the evaluation of treatment choices, in a framework where the patient's will and medical indication are examined and completed in a structured manner. Further experts (ideally, an ad hoc clinical ethics consultation) should be consulted if the treatment measure is of questionable medical benefit and/or of questionable patient consent., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.)

Background: The need for an ethical debate about the use of coercion in intensive care units (ICU) may not be as obvious as in other areas of medicine, such as psychiatry. Coercive measures are often necessary to treat critically ill patients in the ICU. It is nevertheless important to keep these measures to a minimum in order to respect the dignity of patients and the cohesion of the clinical team. A deeper understanding of what patients and their relatives perceive during their ICU stay will shed different light on intensive care management. Patients' experiences of loss of control, dependency and abandonment may lead to a new approach towards a broader approach to the concept of coercion in intensive care. The aim of our research is to explore the experiences of patients and relatives in the ICU and to determine when it might be possible to reduce feelings and memories of coercion., Methods: We conducted and analysed 29 semi-structured interviews with patients and relatives who had been in the ICU a few months previously. Following a coding and categorisation process in MAXQDA™, a rigorous qualitative methodology was used to identify themes relevant to our research., Results: Five main themes emerged: memory issues; interviewees' experiences of restricting measures and coercive treatment; patients' negative perception of situational and relational dependency with the risk of informal coercion; patients' perceptions of good care in a context of perceived dependency; progression from perception of coercion and dependency to respect for the person. All patients were grateful to have survived. However, coercion in the form of restraint, restriction of movement, and coercive treatment in the ICU was also acknowledged by patients and relatives. These included elements of informal coercion beyond restraints, such as a perceived negative sense of dependence, surrender, and asymmetrical interaction between the patient and health providers., Conclusions: To capture the full range of patients' experiences of coercion, it is necessary to expand the concept of coercion to include less obvious forms of informal coercion that may occur in dependency situations. This will help identify solutions to avoid or reduce negative recollections that may persist long after discharge and negatively affect the patients' quality of life., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Despite social laws, overtreatment, undertreatment, and incorrect treatment are all present in the German health care system. Overtreatment denotes diagnostic and therapeutic measures that are not appropriate because they do not improve the patients' length or quality of life, cause more harm than benefit, and/or are not consented to by the patient. Overtreatment can result in considerable burden for patients, their families, the treating teams, and society. This position paper describes causes of overtreatment in intensive care medicine and makes specific recommendations to identify and prevent it. Recognition and avoidance of overtreatment in intensive care medicine requires measures on the micro-, meso- and macrolevels, especially the following: (1) frequent (re-)evaluation of the therapeutic goal within the treating team while taking the patient's will into consideration, while simultaneously attending to the patients and their families; (2) fostering a patient-centered corporate culture in the hospital, giving priority to high-quality patient care; (3) minimizing improper incentives in health care financing, supported by reform of the reimbursement system that is still based on diagnose-related groups; (4) strengthening of interprofessional co-operation via education and training; and (5) initiating and advancing a societal discourse on overtreatment.

Coercive treatment in medicine includes measures taken against a current or previous expression of the will of the person concerned. It can include overcoming manifested resistance, especially in patients who no longer have the capacity to consent. Even though coercive measurements are common in psychiatry, they are also used in intensive care units (ICU). Use of coercive measurements in the ICU has always been a conflict between providing best medical care and restriction of free will/patient will. Medical staff is generally only partially aware of the moral conflict of these measures. However, patients have described coercion as an active loss of free will which they experience to be dehumanizing, stressful and traumatizing. The challenge in the ICU is to focus on the individual needs of the patients and involve them as much as possible while providing high-quality, highly specialized medical care. In order to avoid coersion in the ICU and to do justice to the individual patient, the focus must shift to building awareness. Models that have been shown to improve awareness such as the ethical reflection within the team, supervision and psychological support for patients and internal hospital standards have also been shown to reduce coercive measurements taken. The aim of this paper is to describe causes, different methods and frequencies of coercive measures used in the ICU. Legal aspects are also taken into account. This paper attempts to identify which procedures undertaken in the ICU can be associated with coercive measurements and how coercion is experienced by patients and the team.

In Switzerland a legal prohibition of volume-based bonus agreements has been initiated which is expected to take force at the beginning of 2021. Bonus agreements for physicians pose a risk to unbiased indication, possibly leading to over-, under- and misuse of medical care. In order to investigate physicians' perceptions of bonus agreements and reflect on them from an ethical point of view, we conducted a qualitative interview study with Swiss senior physicians. The remuneration system is complex and diverse so that the interviewed physicians were not always able to explain in detail to which targets the variable components of their salary were linked. Study participants were aware of their ethical responsibility regarding non-biased indication and cost-effective medicine. All rejected volume-based bonus agreements. Target agreements should generally have a clear, comprehensible function and always contain a component related to the quality of care delivered. Critical attention should go beyond a narrow focus on volume-based bonus agreements to include other volume-oriented target agreements and reimbursement systems that have the potential to negatively affect patient care., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier GmbH.)

In view of the globally evolving coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, German hospitals rapidly expanded their intensive care capacities. However, it is possible that even with an optimal use of the increased resources, these will not suffice for all patients in need. Therefore, recommendations for the allocation of intensive care resources in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic have been developed by a multidisciplinary group of authors with the support of eight scientific medical societies. The recommendations for procedures and criteria for prioritisations in case of resource scarcity are based on scientific evidence, ethicolegal considerations and practical experience. Medical decisions must always be based on the need and the treatment preferences of the individual patient. In addition to this patient-centred approach, prioritisations in case of resource scarcity require a supraindividual perspective. In such situations, prioritisations should be based on the criterion of clinical prospect of success in order to minimize the number of preventable deaths due to resource scarcity and to avoid discrimination based on age, disabilities or social factors. The assessment of the clinical prospect of success should take into account the severity of the current illness, severe comorbidities and the patient's general health status prior to the current illness.

On March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization classified COVID-19, caused by Sars-CoV-2, as a pandemic. Although not much was known about the new virus, the first outbreaks in China and Italy showed that potentially a large number of people worldwide could fall critically ill in a short period of time. A shortage of ventilators and intensive care resources was expected in many countries, leading to concerns about restrictions of medical care and preventable deaths. In order to be prepared for this challenging situation, national triage guidance has been developed or adapted from former influenza pandemic guidelines in an increasing number of countries over the past few months. In this article, we provide a comparative analysis of triage recommendations from selected national and international professional societies, including Australia/New Zealand, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Pakistan, South Africa, Switzerland, the United States, and the International Society of Critical Care Medicine. We describe areas of consensus, including the importance of prognosis, patient will, transparency of the decision-making process, and psychosocial support for staff, as well as the role of justice and benefit maximization as core principles. We then probe areas of disagreement, such as the role of survival versus outcome, long-term versus short-term prognosis, the use of age and comorbidities as triage criteria, priority groups and potential tiebreakers such as 'lottery' or 'first come, first served'. Having explored a number of tensions in current guidance, we conclude with a suggestion for framework conditions that are clear, consistent and implementable. This analysis is intended to advance the ongoing debate regarding the fair allocation of limited resources and may be relevant for future policy-making., (© 2020 The Authors. Bioethics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background and Challenge: Injuries, especially traumatic brain injury, or specific illnesses and their respective sequelae can result in the demise of the patients afflicted despite all efforts of modern intensive care medicine. If in principle organ donation is an option after a patient's death, intensive therapeutic measures are regularly required in order to maintain the homeostasis of the organs. These measures, however, cannot benefit the patient afflicted anymore-which in turn might lead to an ethical conflict between dignified palliative care for him/her and expanded intensive treatment to facilitate organ donation for others, especially if the patient has opted for the limitation of life-sustaining therapies in an advance directive., Method: The Ethics Section and the Organ Donation and Transplantation Section of the German Interdisciplinary Association of Critical Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) have convened several meetings and a telephone conference and have arrived at a decision-making aid as to the extent of treatment for potential organ donors. This instrument focusses first on the assessment of five individual dimensions regarding organ donation, namely the certitude of a complete and irreversible loss of all brain function, the patient's wishes as to organ donation, his or her wishes as to limiting life-sustaining therapies, the intensity of expanded intensive treatment for organ protection and the odds of its successful attainment. Then, the combination of the individual assessments, as graphically shown in a {Netzdiagramm}, will allow for a judgement as to whether a continuation or possibly an expansion of intensive care measures is ethically justified, questionable or even inappropriate., Result: The aid described can help mitigate ethical conflicts as to the extent of intensive care treatment for moribund patients, when organ donation is a medically sound option. NOTE: Gerald Neitzke und Annette Rogge contributed equally to this paper and should be considered co-first authors.

Background: Communication with relatives is a central part of the decision-making process. In the absence of the patient's direct consent to a potential organ donation, the next of kin must provide information about a potential wish to donate and give permission in the context of an extended consent solution. At the same time, family members must also cope with the death of a loved one., Objective: To determine how relatives can be optimally supported during the decision-making process., Materials and Methods: Narrative review., Results: In the context of potential or confirmed irreversible brain death, communication with family members or legal representatives serves to deliver bad news as well as to determine whether the patient had a wish to donate his/her organs and to clarify the resultant steps. Communication strategies such as the SPIKES or VALUE models provide emotional and cognitive support for relatives and strengthen clinicians' communication skills. Clinicians' behavior towards patients, deceased, and next of kin may influence relatives' decision-making; respectful and competent behavior seems to contribute towards relatives granting permission for organ donation., Conclusion: Clinicians must be trained and skilled in communication strategies which are used in critical situations to provide emotional support to relatives during the organ donation decision-making process. Relatives are more likely to achieve a satisfying and sustainable decision if a strong relationship exists between clinicians and relatives based on information giving, openness, trust, and empathy.

The Ethics Section of the German Interdisciplinary Association of Critical Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) recently published a documentation for decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining therapies. The wish to donate organs was not considered explicitly. Therefore the Ethics Section and the Organ Donation and Transplantation Section of the DIVI together with the Ethics Section of the German Society of Medical Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine worked out a supplementary footnote for the documentation form to address the individual case of a patient's wish to donate organs.

Family members of adult intensive care patients are partners of the interdisciplinary team. Family members provide important contributions to patient-centered care in the intensive care unit (ICU) and beyond. At the same time, family members are stressed and are themselves in need of support ("family-centered care"). This is mainly provided through family conferences. Family members must always be treated respectfully and with consideration for their acute stress syndrome. A structured communication is recommended as well as written standard operating procedures (SOPs) or guidelines for the ICU team and brochures and written guidelines for relatives. Documentation of structured family conferences is an established quality indicator of intensive care.