Extubation Screening
Among the five parameters in pre-extubation screening, only GCS
assessment (done in 84%) was being done in significant proportion of
patients. While this continued to remain high, there was a significant
improvement in other four parameters in phase 3 as compared to Phase 1
(Figure 4).
There was an increase in the proportion of patients who were
successfully extubated from 50% to 66%; however, this was not
significant (p=0.10). There was no significant difference in duration of
mechanical ventilation although there was a trend towards reduction (10
days vs 7.3 days, p=0.61). There was no significant difference in the
duration of ICU stay (9.2 vs 8.2 days, p=0.57) as well as hospital stay
between the two groups (16.1 vs 17.1 days, p= 0.45). Frequency of
re-intubations decreased from 14% to 6% in phase 3. Frequency of
ventilator associated pneumonia decreased from 34% to 18%.