Prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia: what nurses can do

Ventilator-associated pneumonia is the second most common hospital-acquired infection in medical intensive care units in the United States. Prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia must be regarded as one of the most important issues in critical care and it has already become one of the core intensive care unit performance measures proposed by the Intensive Care Advisory Panel of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. This article focuses on prevention strategies which can be applied by critical care nurses during daily care.