RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A Taxonomy for Mechanical Ventilation: 10 Fundamental Maxims
JF Respiratory Care
FD American Association for Respiratory Care
SP respcare.03057
DO 10.4187/respcare.03057
A1 Chatburn, Robert L
A1 Khatib, Mohamad El
A1 Mireles-Cabodevila, Eduardo
YR 2014
UL http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/early/2014/08/12/respcare.03057.abstract
AB The American Association for Respiratory Care has declared a benchmark for competency in mechanical ventilation that includes the ability to “apply to practice all ventilation modes currently available on all invasive and noninvasive mechanical ventilators.” This level of competency presupposes the ability to identify, classify, compare, and contrast all modes of ventilation. Unfortunately, current educational paradigms do not supply the tools to achieve such goals. To fill this gap, we expand and refine a previously described taxonomy for classifying modes of ventilation and explain how it can be understood in terms of 10 fundamental constructs of ventilator technology: (1) defining a breath, (2) defining an assisted breath, (3) specifying the means of assisting breaths based on control variables specified by the equation of motion, (4) classifying breaths in terms of how inspiration is started and stopped, (5) identifying ventilator-initiated versus patient-initiated start and stop events, (6) defining spontaneous and mandatory breaths, (7) defining breath sequences (8), combining control variables and breath sequences into ventilatory patterns, (9) describing targeting schemes, and (10) constructing a formal taxonomy for modes of ventilation composed of control variable, breath sequence, and targeting schemes. Having established the theoretical basis of the taxonomy, we demonstrate a step-by-step procedure to classify any mode on any mechanical ventilator.