Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Patients who become critically ill from lung failure require support from a breathing machine (mechanical ventilation) in the intensive care unit (ICU). To keep patients' calm and comfortable while they are receiving lung support from the breathing machine, powerful sedative drugs that cause sleep are given typically through an intravenous (IV) line. Use of IV sleep drugs is associated with many problems including slow patient wake-up, confusion, and sometimes these drugs can be in short supply as seen during an emergency crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. The SAVE-ICU trial was launched during the pandemic and explored an alternative drug for providing sleep using inhaled medications that are typically used in operating rooms during surgery. The SAVE-ICU trial has run across many ICUs in Canada and United States and will compare patient outcomes like death, time on a ventilator, time in ICU and hospital, confusion in patients who have lung failure and receive either inhaled or IV sleep medications. As part of this project, we want to share the findings of this trial widely with healthcare teams, researchers, decision-makers and the public to guide best evidence-based sedation care for this critically ill patient group. Our plan will focus on making information accessible and relevant to different audiences by using publications, presentations at leading conferences, lay summaries and infographics. Use of inhaled medications are a new treatment for ICUs and we will share practical knowledge on how to do this using workshops and other teaching approaches. This plan is supported by many members of the ICU team (doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists) and also includes a patient who was in ICU with lung failure from COVID-19 and experienced terrible adverse effects of IV sleep medications.