A quality improvement initiative to reduce ventilator-associated pneumonia at a large regional hospital

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is the leading cause of death among hospital-acquired infections and prolongs time spent on the ventilator, length of intensive care unit (ICU) stay and length of hospital stay after discharge from the ICU. The ventilator bundle of the Institute of Healthcare Improvement includes five evidence-based guidelines which are proven to be effective in the prevention of VAP. The main purpose of this study is to determine the incidence of VAP at two intensive care units at the Jessa Hospital. In addition, compliance rates with the different elements of the VAP bundle are determined. From 1 January 2011 to 31 March 2011 an explorative study was conducted on a 18-bed surgical intensive care unit (SICU) and a six-bed medical intensive care unit (MICU). VAP was diagnosed using Johanson et al. criteria. Bedside observations and analysis of the electronic patient record were performed in order to determine compliance relative to the VAP bundle. At the SICU 10 VAPs were diagnosed resulting in an incidence of 38.46% and a VAP rate of 22.56. Three VAPs were diagnosed at the MICU. The incidence of VAP at the MICU was 18.75% resulting in a VAP rate of 18.75%. Compliance to all elements of the VAP bundle was observed in 0.52% (SICU) and 19.64% (MICU) of the observations. Compliance at the level of individual elements of the bundle varies between 1.03% and 99.48% (SICU) and 32.14% and 100% (MICU).