Strong Lauded for Saving Lives

Patients at Strong Memorial Hospital’s adult intensive care unit can rest easy. The hospital has nearly conquered a deadly illness that plagues hospitals throughout the United States: ventilator-associated pneumonia.

National studies estimate that between 10 and 65 percent of patients on ventilators contract the potentially deadly illness: Ventilator-associated pneumonia is the cause of more than 26,000 hospital deaths per year.

Through a series of preventive measures—elevating the head of a patient’s bed, allowing sedated patients to wake at regular intervals—the hospital achieved dramatic results. The frequency of ventilator-associated pneumonia fell from 6 percent at the start of the initiative to zero in 2006. The amount of time patients spent on ventilators and in the ICU also has decreased, along with overall mortality.

For its efforts, Strong was named by the Institute for Health Care Improvement as one of 14 hospitals that have eliminated ventilator-associated pneumonia for a year or longer.