[Ventilation Patients between Acute Care and Long-term Out-of-Hospital Ventilation - Routine Documentation based...

Area of Science:

• Pulmonology
• Critical Care Medicine
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Increasing prevalence of long-term out-of-hospital ventilation necessitates quality of care assessment.
• Limited data exists on the quality of care for patients requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation outside traditional hospital settings.
• The OVER-BEAS study investigated the care pathways for patients undergoing mechanical ventilation weaning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the care situation of patients undergoing mechanical ventilation weaning.
• To analyze patient care from admission to discharge from a weaning center.
• To utilize existing routine documentation for quality assessment.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of patients admitted to a weaning center in 2018.
• Descriptive analysis of routine data collected for quality management purposes.
• Data sourced from the WeanNet database, weaning center discharge letters, and referring hospital transfer reports.

Main Results:

• 50.8% of patients were successfully weaned from mechanical ventilation and extubated/decannulated.
• Of those not fully weaned, 75.0% required continuous specialized staff or nurse support.
• Further care for non-weaned patients was predominantly in inpatient facilities, such as ventilator-assisted living communities.

Conclusions:

• Routine documentation effectively captures and presents the care situation of weaning patients.
• This approach allows for the comparison of outcomes between different weaning centers.
• Assessing care quality using routine data enhances transparency and comparability in weaning center performance.