Abstract
With rising healthcare costs and increasing demands placed on healthcare workers, it is no wonder that decreasing hospital length of stay for patients is high priority for hospitals today. Hospital acquired infections are one of the culprits keeping so many patients hospitalized. Specifically, in intensive care units (ICU) and intermediate care (IMC) units that care for mechanically ventilated patients, ventilator associated pneumonia secondary to intubation is a complication and cost that is being sought to be avoided. Hospitals have been pro-active to prevent ventilator associated pneumonia from occurring by placing oral care bundles or protocols in place to care for mechanically ventilated patients. With the recent development of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it is a reminder of how vital oral care bundles are to prevent pneumonia. But what is the best practice? Therefore, research had to be done to answer this PICOT question: In mechanically ventilated patients (P), how does routinely scheduled oral care with chlorhexidine (I) compared to other oral care substances, inconsistent, or no oral care (C) affect ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) (O) within hospitalization stay (T)?
Date of publication
Spring 5-3-2020
Document Type
MSN Capstone Project
Language
english
Persistent identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/10950/2635
Degree
MSN
Recommended Citation
Baber, Rachel, "Oral Care and Ventilator Associated Pneumonia Prevention" (2020). MSN Capstone Projects. Paper 40.
http://hdl.handle.net/10950/2635
Included in
Critical Care Nursing Commons, Geriatric Nursing Commons, Nursing Administration Commons