Championing Helmets in Critical Care: Lessons from Italy and Beyond

NursePreneurs

Aurika Savickaite is a nurse by heart who grew up in Lithuania and has been working in the nursing field for over 20 years. She came to the United States and started working at University of Chicago Medical ICU as a nurse. After a few years, she decided to further her education and obtained her nurse practitioner degree in Acute care and geriatrics from Rush University. During her studies, she became fascinated with the helmet interface used for non-invasive positive pressure ventilation, which she researched and used for her capstone paper. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2019 and 2020, she brought awareness to the public in the United States about the use of helmets for COVID patients via her website helmetbasedventilation.com, where she gathered evidence-based practices and protocols from Italy, where helmets have been used for over 20 years.