Tuesday 5 July 2016

The Basics Of VAP Prevention Strategies

By Ruth Wilson


Ventilators associated pneumonia which is mostly known as VAP is actually a type of nosocomial pneumonia that mostly occurs to the patients who are under mechanical ventilator for more than two days. This disease has been associated with an increase in mortality as well as morbidity among patients. It has also significantly contributed to huge hospital bills. Basically the VAP prevention guidelines usually begin from the time of incubation and should actually be extended till the extubation period.

Among all other types of infections acquired in hospital it has been found out that this is the most common and at times it claims lives of about a third of patients who gets it. Those individuals whom have been infected usually spend more time under the ICU and due to this they tend to incur huge treatment costs that expected.

It has often been viewed that about a third of the patients whom gets this kind of infection mostly do not survive. This therefore creates a big role for the nurses to actually look for effective strategies to prevent the infection. Most recently there have improved CDC guidelines based on the deterrence method of controlling the infection but you find that nurses usually do not follow these guidelines.

Oral decontamination is another possible measure to undertake. This method is usually meant to reduce the bacterial especially within the oral cavity of a patient. This method can actually be achieved by both the pharmacological as well as mechanical intervention methods. The mechanical intervention methods basically include brushing of teeth together with the rinsing of oral cavity meant to dental plaque.

Limiting the duration of time in which a patient is under the ventilation machine is actually one of the best policies to adopt where necessary. Some of the recommended measure is basically use the noninvasive positive pressured which is usually supplied endlessly either through the face or through the nose mask instead of incubating the patient. It is important if nurses actually remove the ET tube from the patient as soon as possible and try means to avoid repeat of endotracheal intubation.

Another possible strategy is through a method called gastric reflux prevention. Basically most of the patients usually possess nasogastric tubes which are meant to predispose them to a gastric reflux. This actually increases the chances of risk of aspiration. An important strategy is to actually inhibit gastric reflux which is mostly controlled by nurses often regarded to as patient poisoning.

Mostly these beds are usually expensive and not necessarily for continuous use in the inhibition of VAP. Additionally adoption of strategies meant to inhibit the colonization can be used as methods of inhibiting the risk of the infection. Basically due to the existence of endotracheal tube which is mostly associated with predisposing of patients to threats of infections, then this demands assessments of patients on daily basis for weaning as well as extubation.

Cross contamination is another guideline to actually follow. Basically the cross contamination strategies for years have actually remained unchanged. Basically adoption of the significance methods of inhibiting the transmission of germs from health care workers to the possible patients is actually overemphasized.




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