Date of Award

5-2005

Document Type

Independent Study

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Abstract

The infectious disease nurses at Altru Health Care System informed the unit that I was working in that we had nine ventilator associated pneumonias in the past year in our unit and that the other intensive care unit had zero. I wanted to know why we had so many and the other unit didn't have any so I started to do a literature search on ventilator related pneumonia. I found new research about the importance of oral care so I met with the representative from the company we used for oral care. He informed me that they had a line of products especially made for ventilator dependent patients

l completed a review of the literature and found that oral care does decrease the number of ventilator associated pneumonia. I decided then to develop a procedure for oral care for the ventilator dependent patient. I did a price comparison of what we were currently spending on oral care products and what we would spend if we implemented the line made for ventilated patients. I also investigated how much money that ventilator associated pneumonia ended up costing the patient and hospital. I presented the information I found to the infection control nurses and the managers of the two units were the new products would be implemented. They all signed agreed to proceed with the project. I met with the product committee to get approval for the new oral care line. They approved the new product and an implementation date was set. I planned an inservice day for all the staff of SCCU, ICU and the critical care float pool. The staff could come anytime during the clay and watch my presentation on the importance of oral care in ventilator dependent patients and get trained on the new product line. My anticipated results are that the number of ventilator associated pneumonias is decreased by using the product and doing oral care on ventilator dependent patients

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