• Michael Klompas, Deverick Anderson, William Trick, Hilary Babcock, Meeta Prasad Kerlin, Lingling Li, Ronda Sinkowitz-Cochran, E Wesley Ely, John Jernigan, Shelley Magill, Rosie Lyles, Caroline O'Neil, Barrett T Kitch, Ellen Arrington, Michele C Balas, Ken Kleinman, Christina Bruce, Julie Lankiewicz, Michael V Murphy, E CoxChristopherC, Ebbing Lautenbach, Daniel Sexton, Victoria Fraser, Robert A Weinstein, Richard Platt, and CDC Prevention Epicenters.
• 1 Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Institute, Boston, Massachusetts.
• Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 2015 Feb 1; 191 (3): 292301292-301.

RationaleThe CDC introduced ventilator-associated event (VAE) definitions in January 2013. Little is known about VAE prevention. We hypothesized that daily, coordinated spontaneous awakening trials (SATs) and spontaneous breathing trials (SBTs) might prevent VAEs.ObjectivesTo assess the preventability of VAEs.MethodsWe nested a multicenter quality improvement collaborative within a prospective study of VAE surveillance among 20 intensive care units between November 2011 and May 2013. Twelve units joined the collaborative and implemented an opt-out protocol for nurses and respiratory therapists to perform paired daily SATs and SBTs. The remaining eight units conducted surveillance alone. We measured temporal trends in VAEs using generalized mixed effects regression models adjusted for patient-level unit, age, sex, reason for intubation, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score, and comorbidity index.Measurements And Main ResultsWe tracked 5,164 consecutive episodes of mechanical ventilation: 3,425 in collaborative units and 1,739 in surveillance-only units. Within collaborative units, significant increases in SATs, SBTs, and percentage of SBTs performed without sedation were mirrored by significant decreases in duration of mechanical ventilation and hospital length-of-stay. There was no change in VAE risk per ventilator day but significant decreases in VAE risk per episode of mechanical ventilation (odds ratio [OR], 0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.42-0.97) and infection-related ventilator-associated complications (OR, 0.35; 95% CI, 0.17-0.71) but not pneumonias (OR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.19-1.3). Within surveillance-only units, there were no significant changes in SAT, SBT, or VAE rates.ConclusionsEnhanced performance of paired, daily SATs and SBTs is associated with lower VAE rates. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT 01583413).

30 keywords...

hide…