A European care bundle for prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia

One recent approach to facilitating guideline implementation involves the use of care bundles. This document presents a care bundle package addressing VAP prevention in an attempt to promote guideline-compliant practices. Uniquely, the development of these care bundles used a formalised methodology to assess the supporting data, based on multi-criteria decision analysis. The resulting VAP care bundles for prevention were: non-ventilatory circuit changes unless specifically indicated, alcohol hand hygiene, appropriately educated and trained staff, incorporation of sedation control and weaning protocols into patient care, and oral care with clorhexidine. Adoption of these care bundles should rationalise VAP prevention practises and improve outcomes, such as length of stay.