Identifying Potential Ventilator Auto-Triggering Among Organ Procurement Organization Referrals

Ventilator auto-trigger is the delivery of an assisted mechanical ventilated breath over the set ventilator frequency in the absence of a spontaneous inspiratory effort and can be caused by inappropriate ventilator trigger sensitivity. Ventilator auto-trigger can be misinterpreted as a spontaneous breath and has the potential to delay or prevent brain death testing and confuse health-care professionals and/or patient families.

To determine the frequency of organ donor referrals from 1 Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) that could benefit from an algorithm designed to assist organ recovery coordinators to identify and correct ventilator auto-triggering.

This retrospective analysis evaluated documentation of organ donor referrals from 1 OPO in central Texas during the 2013 calendar year that resulted in the withdrawal of care by the patient's family and the recovery of organs.

The frequency of referrals that presented with absent brain stem reflexes except for additional respirations over the set ventilator rate was determined to assess for the need of the proposed algorithm.

Documentation of 672 organ procurement organization referrals was evaluated. Documentation from 42 referrals that resulted in the withdrawal of care and 21 referrals that resulted in the recovery of organs were identified with absent brain stem reflexes except for spontaneous respirations on the mechanical ventilator. As a result, an algorithm designed to identify and correct ventilator auto-trigger could have been used 63 times during the 2013 calendar year.