Patients exposed to a surgical safety checklist experience better postoperative outcomes, but this could simply reflect wider quality of care in hospitals where checklist use is routine.

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Critical care is underprioritized. A global call to action is needed to increase equitable access to care and the quality of care provided to critically ill patients. Current challenges to effective critical care in resource-constrained settings are many. Estimates of the burden of critical illness are extrapolated from common etiologies, but the true burden remains ill-defined. Measuring the burden of critical illness is epidemiologically challenging but is thought to be increasing. Resources, infrastructure, and training are inadequate. Millions die unnecessarily due to critical illness. Solutions start with the implementation of first-step, patient care fundamentals known as Essential Emergency and Critical Care. Such essential care stands to decrease critical-illness mortality, augment pandemic preparedness, decrease postoperative mortality, and decrease the need for advanced level care. The entire healthcare workforce must be trained in these fundamentals. Additionally, physician and nurse specialists trained in critical care are needed and must be retained as leaders of critical care initiatives, researchers, and teachers. Context-specific research is mandatory to ensure care is appropriate for the patient populations served, not just duplicated from high-resourced settings. Governments must increase healthcare spending and invest in capacity to treat critically ill patients. Advocacy at all levels is needed to achieve universal health coverage for critically ill patients.

Background:Coma occurring in the course of an illness ordinarily implies a poor prognosis and early prognostication is important for treatment decisions. The study was undertaken to study the factors associated with mortality in nontraumatic coma in a tertiary institution.Materials and Methods:In this prospective observational study, adults with clinically confirmed coma Glasgow coma scale (GCS) score of ≤8, admitted consecutively to the emergency unit of a tertiary hospital in Northwestern Nigeria over a period of 18 months were recruited. Vital parameters, severity of coma by GCS and neurological signs were recorded. The etiology of coma was determined on the basis of history, clinical examination, and laboratory investigations. Outcome was determined within 1 month of onset of coma by patients’ death or survival.Results:A total of 194 patients (140 males and 54 females) were recruited with mean age was 53.7 ± 1.4. The predominant etiological factors were central nervous system (CNS) infections (28.9%), toxic and metabolic (28.9%), and stroke (23.7%). Overall, 1-month mortality was 49%. On univariate analysis, the factors that showed significant association with outcome were gender, blood pressure, GCS, breathing pattern, pupillary size, pupillary reaction, papiloedema, and abnormal posturing. Abnormal pupillary size, severe hypertension, and GCS score ≤5 were independent predictors of in-hospital 1-month mortality in nontraumatic coma.Conclusion:The independent important predictors of nontraumatic 1-month coma mortality in a developing country setting were GCS ≤ 5, abnormal pupillary size, and severe hypertension.