Reducing risk for ventilator associated pneumonia through nursing sensitive interventions

SummaryThe purpose of this paper is to describe an improvement initiative designed to implement nurse sensitive interventions known to reduce patients’ risk for ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), in cardiothoracic intensive care patients. This initiative is a part of one Australian critical care unit's efforts to identify and measure compliance with key nursing interventions known to improve cardiac surgical patients’ outcomes. The premise behind the initiative is that improved nursing process and surveillance systems allow emerging trends to catalyse action and motivate nurses to reduce patients’ risk for infection acquisition. At five and nine months following implementation of the initiative a > 70% compliance rate in 11 out of the 15 nurse sensitive interventions known to reduce patients’ risks for VAP and a drop in VAP incidence from 13.4% to 7.69% from per 1000 ventilator days was accomplished.