Travel Report by Dr Carol Hodgson, Senior research Fellow, ANZIC-RC

This year I was fortunate to receive a travel grant from the SPHPM to attend the ATS in May. It allowed me to visit Philadelphia during the busy period of meetings before and after the main conference.

I was invited speaker at a pre-conference seminar called “International Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Meeting” which is convened by Prof Dale Needham, John Hopkins University, Baltimore. I was asked to discuss the interim results of our TEAM study in Australia and New Zealand “A prospective cohort study on early activity and mobilisation in intensive care” which has enrolled 200 patients from 12 sites to identify whether we move our critically ill patients while they are mechanically ventilated in ICU.  

I also spoke about our plans for a pilot randomised controlled trial across 5 sites (3 in Australia and 2 in New Zealand) where we will compare early goal directed mobilisation to standard care to determine if we can implement the intervention, separate the treatment an control groups without contamination and determine the feasibility of a larger RCT in this area. This study is funded by a Monash Strategic Grant and is planned to commence in July 2013. The outcome measure we have developed generated a lot of interest and as a result of this meeting  5 research groups are using our ICU mobility scale and sites in USA, Canada and Saudi Arabia are collecting TEAM data for international comparisons.

I  also attended a full day meeting as a member of the ATS Critical Care Assembly Committee for “Guidelines on Mechanical Ventilation in Acute Respiratory Distress”. This committee is an international collaboration with experts in mechanical ventilation from USA, Canada , France, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Australia.