PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Brian K Walsh
AU  - Craig D Smallwood
AU  - Jordan S Rettig
AU  - John E Thompson
AU  - Robert M Kacmarek
AU  - John H Arnold
TI  - Categorization in Mechanically Ventilated Pediatric Subjects: A Proposed Method to Improve Quality
AID  - 10.4187/respcare.04723
DP  - 2016 Jun 14
TA  - Respiratory Care
PG  - respcare.04723
4099  - http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/early/2016/06/14/respcare.04723.short
4100  - http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/early/2016/06/14/respcare.04723.full
AB  - BACKGROUND: Thousands of children require mechanical ventilation each year. Although mechanical ventilation is lifesaving, it is also associated with adverse events if not properly managed. The systematic implementation of evidence-based practice through the use of guidelines and protocols has been shown to mitigate risk, yet variation in care remains prevalent. Advances in health-care technology provided the ability to stream data about mechanical ventilation and therapeutic response. Through these advances, a computer system was developed to enable the coupling of physiologic and ventilation data for real-time interpretation. Our aim was to assess the feasibility and utility of a newly developed patient categorization and scoring system to objectively measure compliance with standards of care.METHODS: We retrospectively categorized the ventilation and oxygenation statuses of subjects within our pediatric ICU utilizing 15 rules-based algorithms. Targets were predetermined based on generally accepted practices. All patient categories were calculated and presented as a percent score (0–100%) of acceptable ventilation, acceptable oxygenation, barotrauma-free, and volutrauma-free states.RESULTS: Two hundred twenty-two subjects were identified and analyzed encompassing 1,578 d of mechanical ventilation. Median age was 3 y, median ideal body weight was 14.7 kg, and 63% were male. The median acceptable ventilation score was 84.6%, and the median acceptable oxygenation score was 70.1% (100% being maximally acceptable). Potential for ventilator-induced lung injury was broken into 2 components: barotrauma and volutrauma. There was very little potential for barotrauma, with a median barotrauma-free state of 100%. Median potential for a volutrauma-free state was 56.1%.CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate the first patient categorization system utilizing a coordinated data-banking system and analytics to determine patient status and a surveillance of mechanical ventilation quality. Further research is needed to determine whether interventions such as visual display of variance from goal and patient categorization summaries can improve outcomes.