Decreasing ventilator-associated pneumonia in adult intensive care units using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement bundle

Background Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) increases in-hospital mortality of ventilated patients to 46%, compared with 32% for ventilated patients who do not develop VAP. In addition, VAP prolongs time spent on the ventilator, length of intensive care unit (ICU) stay, and length of hospital stay. Methods In this study, we implemented VAP bundle to decrease the rate of VAP infection. This is a pre- and postintervention trial beginning in 2006 to decrease the rate of VAP in adult ICUs after initiation of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) VAP bundle compared with the VAP rate for the preceding 12 months. The study was conducted at a private general hospital in Saudi Arabia. The study included all adult patients who were on mechanical ventilation from 2006 to 2008. An interdisciplinary performance improvement team was formed. The team implemented an evidence-based VAP bundle adopted from the IHI. Results The implementation of the VAP prevention bundle resulted in the reduction of VAP rates from a mean of 9.3 cases per 1000 ventilator-days in fiscal year 2006 to 2.3 cases per 1000 ventilator-days in 2007 and to 2.2 in 2008 ( P < .001). It is estimated that each VAP case increases the hospital length of stay attributable by 10 days and the mean hospital cost by $40,000. Thus, the potential decrease in hospital cost is $780,000 annually. Conclusion Implementing the IHI VAP bundle significantly resulted in the reduction of the VAP rate with potential great cost avoidance.