Aiding the ICU of the Future
The ICU is an incredible place, saving the lives of our loved ones every single day. But what happens to the mental well-being of our friends and family after they come back home?
Mental health research on ICU patients has not received the attention that it deserves. The Critical Care Research Group, supported by The Common Good, created The ICU of the Future, which focuses on how the physical and sensory environment in ICU impacts the emotional and psychological wellbeing of the patient.
The Common Good, an initiative of The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation, is established to help people live healthier for longer. They apply 100% of the public donations to fund innovative research, that has the potential to have a very real and profound impact.
Since 2014, Merlo has been heavily involved with supporting The Common Good through monetary and in-kind donations and has been described as an “essential piece of the project”.
We recently visited the Prince Charles Hospital to view a prototype of the ICU of the Future, a model being set up to assist patients with mental health issues.
Revolutionising Patient Care
Close to 90% of ICU patients will survive ICU admission, however, 50-70% leave with mental health problems such as depression, PTSD, anxiety, and cognitive problems all linked with their stay in ICU.
James Wilkinson, Chief Executive Officer of Merlo, met with Dr Stein Tronstad, a physiotherapist and Project Manager of The Critical Care Research Group.
“From an ICU point of view, people come in and get treatment for their physical disorders, but we don’t really think of the impact of the ICU admission and critical needs of the patient’s recovery, from a mental health point of view.” said Dr Stein.
“During this project, we started interviewing patients and realising that patients who leave ICU leave with new mental health problems that they didn’t have before.”
The ICU of the Future has created a space at the Prince Charles Hospital that concentrates on the well-being of the patient, including both their physical condition and their emotional and mental health.
The patient’s experience will be at the centre of an innovative bed space design, or ‘Cocoon’, that infuses technology and personalised medicine with best practice architectural and engineering solutions to improve clinical efficiencies.
The ICU of the Future has created a space at the Prince Charles Hospital that concentrates on the well-being of the patient, including both their physical condition and their emotional and mental health.
The patient’s experience will be at the centre of an innovative bed space design, or ‘Cocoon’, that infuses technology and personalised medicine with best practice architectural and engineering solutions to improve clinical efficiencies.
To Survive and Thrive
The ICU environment is a life-saving environment, but also can have some significant impacts on the mental health of patients. Dr. Stein realised through interviews, what specifically impacts patients mentally, includes excessive noise.
“The sound levels in an ICU room during the day on average is the same as putting an ICU bed right next to a busy freeway.” said Dr. Stein. “The peak noise levels are similar to power tools being used 10 meters away from the patient.”
ICU patients are the sickest in the hospital, with these noise levels the patient can’t sleep and recover the way they deserve. The lighting levels, bare walls, and ability to see the equipment also negatively impact the physical and sensory environment.
These are not unique problems and affect the population on a global scale. By identifying the major problems patients face in ICU which impact their mental health, the research group can address these and improve the outcomes.
This includes the introduction of technologies that can reduce the amount of noise that is created, the volume heard by the patient, and the implementation of new lighting systems which emulate natural daylight.
The lights are timed, changing the colour temperature to mimic the natural amount of sunlight during the day and creating design changes to the room to provide patients with something stimulating to look at.
This approach to critical care will provide a way for the emotional and psychological well-being of the ICU patient to come first so that people not only survive but thrive.
Since 2014, Merlo’s support has directly funded research into medical discoveries, including the ICU of the Future, that could save the lives of those we love or even our own.
Using the energy of us all, we can sustainably fund innovative medical discoveries that will profoundly improve and save lives.
To learn more about The Common Good click here.