SAN DIEGO – A rounding team formed to oversee implementation of a bundle of ICU interventions reduced the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and the number of ventilation days, as well as the ICU and hospital length of stay, according to a new study conducted at a level 1 trauma center in California. The rounding team worked toward optimal implementation of the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s ABCDEF bundle, part of the society’s ICU liberation initiative.
ABCDEF stands for: Assessment, prevention, and management of pain; Both spontaneous awakening and breathing trials; Choice of analgesia and sedation; Delirium assessment, prevention, and management; Early mobility and exercise; and Family engagement and empowerment.
The Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, Calif., where the study was conducted, was chosen in 2015 to participate in the ICU liberation initiative. The facility serves a population of 3.2 million and sees just under 4,000 trauma patients per year.
After a 6-month retrospective analysis, the team members at the medical center realized they needed to improve ABCDEF implementation with respect to evaluating sedation practices and improving delirium assessment.
Before the start of the 17-month collaborative period, they formed an ICU liberation team called SMART, short for Sedation, Mobilization, Assessment Rounding Team, which included representatives from ICU nursing, pharmacy, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, physicians, and administration. They developed a daily rounding tool to help the team implement procedures, with the goal of reducing the continuous infusion of benzodiazepines and increasing intermittent dosing, the use of short-acting medications, and conducting spontaneous awakening and breathing trials. The SMART team made daily rounds to ensure that the ABCDEF bundle was being implemented.
The researchers then continued the analysis for another 12 months after the end of the initiative. During this last phase, the benefits of the SMART team became evident.
“Stick with it. Don’t let up. Don’t quit,” Wade Veneman, a respiratory therapist at the medical center, said in an interview. He presented the study at the Critical Care Congress sponsored by the Society of Critical Care Medicine. “It can be particularly difficult in the face of critical care providers who may be skeptical of new initiatives. They think it’s something new, and they hope that it goes away. But this is something we feel we’re going to keep for a long time,” he added.
Jim Kling/MDedge News
Dr. Wade Veneman
Mr. Veneman hopes to implement the SMART program in the neurological critical care ICU. The medical director of that unit did not participate in the initial collaborative, but Mr. Veneman hopes to change that. “The data is going to show that his VAP and ventilator days are going up, and everywhere else they’re going down,” he said.
The researchers analyzed data on 1,127 mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU. At total of 197 patients were treated 6 months before the implementation of the collaborative, 519 during 17 months of collaborative implementation, and 411 in the 12 months after implementation. There were some differences between the populations: The before group was slightly younger than the after-implementation group (mean 41 vs. 44, P = .04), and the mean Injury Severity Score score was 24 in the before group, 22 during, and 20 after (P = .002). The researchers noted that the differences were clinically significant.
Benzodiazepine use declined, but the effect was statistically significant only in the after population. Continuous use declined from 87% before implementation to 83% during (P = .21) and 53% after (P less than .001). Intermittent use was 57% before implementation, increased to 61% during (P = .44), and fell to 44% after (P less than .001). Delirium assessment performance improved throughout, from 9% before implementation to 42% during (P less than .001) to 73% after implementation (P less than .001).
The VAP rate increased from 3.4% before the SMART program to 4.5% during implementation (P = .53), and then dropped to 0.9% afterward (P = .001). Ventilation days started at a mean of 10.5, then dropped to 9.5 during implementation (P = .30), and 8.2 after implementation (P = .027).
ICU length of stay improved from 10.7 before implementation to 9.3 afterward (P = .021), and overall hospital length of stay went from 17.3 days to 16.3 (P = .005).
The study was not funded. Mr. Veneman has no relevant financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Veneman W et al. CCC48, Abstract 63.
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