An in-depth look at ventilator-associated pneumonia in trauma patients and efforts to increase bundle compliance, education and documentation in a surgical trauma critical care unit

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is considered the most common hospital acquired infection seen in critical care settings and leading cause of death in Intensive Care Units (ICU). The objective of this study was to assess whether specimen collection impacted diagnosis and if implementation of a VAP bundle would decrease rates at our center. Methods: This single center study design is a retrospective chart review from 2017 to 2020 utilizing the elec-tronic medical record. A pre-/postintervention comparison was performed following implementation of a unit wide VAP bundle and nursing education. Descriptive statistics and continuous variables were analyzed with independent group t-tests, and categorical variables were analyzed with chi-squared tests. Results: Ventilator-associated pneumonia rates decreased in the postimplementation time (20.8%, n = 74 vs 12.2%, n = 15; P = .03). There were no significant differences in the patient profile of those who acquired VAP (ie, males 79.7% vs 86.7%, blunt injuries 63.5% vs 86.7% and severity scores 24.8 vs 25.1, pre vs postimplemen-tation, respectively, all P-values greater than .05). Discussion/Conclusions: Reduction in VAP rates were achieved by implementing a standardized, evidence based, prevention protocol. Further research is warranted as studies have noted that patients requiring mechanical ventilation are at greater risk for VAP than other ICU patients due to the nature of their injuries and increased risk of prolonged mechanical ventilation >= 21 days. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)