A European care bundle for management of ventilator-associated pneumonia

Background: Although there is a wealth of guidance concerning the management of patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), compliance with recommendations concerning optimal treatment practices is highly variable.

Methods: This document presents a comprehensive care bundle package addressing all aspects of VAP diagnosis and treatment in an attempt to promote guideline-compliant practices. Uniquely, the development of these care bundles used a formalized method to assess the supporting data, based on multicriteria decision analysis.

Results: This system allowed the numerous VAP management parameters identified from recent European guidelines to be ranked according to defined criteria. The resulting VAP care bundles are (a) diagnosis: early chest x-rays within 1 hour, immediate reporting of respiratory secretions Gram staining, and (b) therapy: immediate treatment, empiric therapy based on local pathogens and risk factors, de-escalation, assessment of response within 72 hours, and short therapy duration if feasible.

Conclusion: Adoption of these care bundles should rationalize VAP management practices and facilitate the development of consistent and guideline-compliant care processes.