Jacqueline Kruser
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Medicine & Clinical Research
When patients with severe breathing failure are placed on a ventilator in the intensive care unit (ICU), doctors often cannot tell whether they will recover. Families are left balancing two hopes: extending life, and avoiding prolonged life support that is unlikely to help.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
time-limited trials
mechanical ventilation
acute respiratory failure
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2028
What they work on
- Map how time-limited trials of mechanical ventilation are actually carried out in five ICUs, using focused ethnography of 50 trials in patients with acute respiratory failure.
- Test whether specific time-limited trial processes are associated with better end-of-life outcomes for patients, family surrogate decision-makers and ICU teams, in a prospective cohort of 5,810 patients.
- Identify the mechanisms by which time-limited trial processes influence end-of-life outcomes, to guide future interventions.
More about the research
A time-limited trial is one way to handle this uncertainty. Patients, families and clinicians agree to try life support for a set period, with clear milestones, and then reassess whether it is working. Time-limited trials are endorsed by professional societies and already used in ICUs. Yet there is little evidence on how best to carry them out.
Why it matters
ICU care often fails patients near the end of life, as well as their families and clinicians. A well-defined time-limited trial process could help ICU teams make decisions about life support that reflect each patient's own goals and values. It could also reduce prolonged treatment that a patient would not want. The approach could later be extended to people with other serious illnesses.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Douglas White
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Elicit from people with surrogate decision-making experience how clinicians should support surrogates of patients with acute respiratory failure in order to achieve care that matches patients' goals and values.
Grant Pignatiello
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Psychology
Test whether REFRAME, a tablet-based cognitive reappraisal program, reduces depressive symptoms in ICU surrogate decision-makers compared with informational support, in a 387-person randomized controlled trial.
Elyse Singer
Southern Methodist University, TX·Social Science
Document how terminally ill patients, their families and palliative care clinicians define a dignified death, using ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted in health facilities.
The school
University of Wisconsin-Madison: 91 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 854 research doctorates a year.
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