About Us

Dale Needham, FCPA, MD, PhD, Director of the Outcomes After Critical Illness and Surgery (OACIS) Group at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, received an R24 grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). This R24 project, entitled “Improving Long-Term Outcomes Research for Acute Respiratory Failure” is aimed at creating resources for researchers conducting long-term follow-up of patients surviving acute respiratory failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARF/ARDS).

This R24 project has three Aims in advancing long-term outcomes research for ARF/ARDS:

1) to recommend long-term outcome measures and associated measurement instruments for research in this patient population. (Click here for: Methodology Summary, Protocol for Modified Delphi Consensus)

2) to create and disseminate practical tools for maximizing patient cohort retention for longitudinal long-term outcomes research studies.

3) to create and disseminate statistical tools and programs to appropriately address truncation due to mortality when analyzing long-term functional outcomes in this patient population.

VIDEO: Dr. Needham discusses the R24 Project in an ATS Podcast

As a resource to researchers, this project complements a 2009 NIH NHLBI workshop recommendation (PubMed) that patient outcomes after hospital discharge be evaluated in Phase III trials. A subsequent 2018 NIH NHBLI working group (PubMed) has specifically recommended this project’s Core Outcome Measurement Set (COMS) for all studies evaluating post-hospital patient outcomes. Furthermore, a 2019 Society of Critical Care Medicine consensus conference on evaluating post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) in adult ICU survivors recommended the outcome measures from this project’s COMS. (PubMed)

An American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society task force recommended this project’s COMS as part of post-discharge follow-up of acute respiratory failure survivors with COVID-19.  (PubMed)

A consensus meeting (SCEPTER III group) recommended that ICU sedation trials planning to evaluate post-hospital outcomes include this project’s COMS. (PubMed)

If you have any questions, please contact us.

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