Effective care transition frameworks not only improve patients’ quality of care and health outcomes, but they also help providers avoid potential medical errors and eliminate duplicate work so care teams can utilize their time and resources efficiently.

The Critical Care Core Curriculum series at the ATS 2025 International Conference will explore numerous care transition scenarios in and out of the intensive care unit (ICU) throughout its two sessions, highlighting best practices for optimal care delivery and patient management. The first session will be hosted from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. PT, Sunday, May 18, in the Moscone Center, Esplanade Ballroom (South Building, Upper Mezzanine).

“Transitions of care in and out of appropriate care settings are so important for the success of our patients in the medical system and is a topic that felt underdiscussed in training and practice,” said Edward Kilb, MD, associate professor of medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina and co-chair of the Critical Care Core Curriculum series. “So, we wanted to take some time to highlight the importance of these different transitions our patients undergo with the help of experts in the field who have been focusing on these throughout their careers.”

The initial session will begin with a discussion of optimizing the transition from the ICU to the floor of the health system. Javier Diaz-Mendoza, MD, associate professor of medicine at Henry Ford Hospital-Wayne State University and co-chair of the Critical Care Core Curriculum series, emphasized the importance of a systematic approach to this transition that ensures care plan specifications are communicated clearly to optimize patient outcomes.

“The goal is to prevent patients from relapsing back into an acute phase and needing to return to the ICU,” Dr. Diaz-Mendoza said.

The session will then shift its focus to examining several best practices of tracheostomy for patients with prolonged respiratory failure. This presentation will address critical considerations, such as when it is best to transition to a tracheostomy to improve outcomes in the ICU. According to Dr. Diaz-Mendoza, timing is essential in this decision-making process.

“Many studies have shown that if you implement tracheostomy earlier, it’s better for the patient because it could decrease the length of their stay in the hospital and reduce the likelihood of several common complications in the ICU,” he said.

The final topic of the day will define and clarify the intensivist’s role in organ donations. Given the unfortunate reality that there is a sizable cohort of patients who don’t survive the critical illness that placed them in the ICU and a long waitlist for patients who are organ transplant eligible, caregivers must understand their role and the options at their disposal to ensure this unique transition yields a positive outcome for another patient.

“One of the things we want to highlight is not only the traditional pathway of organ donation through brain death, but also the increase in availability and skill in organ donation through cardiac death,” Dr. Kilb explained. “That is something the intensivist can directly affect through their efforts by identifying patients through their organ procurement agency to have them offer families the opportunity to extend or save another person’s life.”

The goal of the core is to support clinicians engaged in maintenance of certification (MOC) activities by providing updates on subjects included in recertification requirements. The ATS Clinical Core Curriculum Symposia focuses on key topics in adult and pediatric pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. The topics are aligned with the corresponding MOC Medical Knowledge modules. This symposium is intended to help clinicians stay up to date with important information relevant to their medical practices and to provide an opportunity for clinicians to evaluate their knowledge and skills while earning MOC Medical Knowledge points.

The second Critical Care Core Curriculum session will continue its exploration of ICU care transitions from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday, May 19.