Accurate measurement of ventilator length of stay and ventilator days for use in assessing patient safety and ventilator associated events.

Objective: Accurate measurements of ventilator length of stay are important for quality measures and mandated by Centers of Disease Control for reporting ventilator associated events. However, it is unknown which method of such a calculation gives the more accurate results. Design: We collected data using three different methods of calculating ventilator length of stay in a community hospital ICU. The first method is the walk-through method for collection of data at 6 am, the second is a data base collection system we created where data was collected by respiratory therapists in a daily ventilator patient log then entered into the database, and finally from query of medical charges for ventilator days from financial department Results: There was statistically significant disagreement between the three methods. The walk though method and data base were not statistically different, but the data from financial charges overestimated the ventilator length of stay. Additionally, there was not statistically significant differences between the time of the walk-through data collection. Conclusion: Ventilator days and hours should be measured by a precise database rather than indirect methods of estimation like walk-through or financial charges. Patient exposure to risk, and reporting of ventilator time, whether days or hours should be measured directly, not estimated. A larger study needs to be performed to examine this variation in a broader medical setting. Keywords: ventilator length of stay, ventilator associated events, ventilator associated pneumonia