Change Your Ventilator Management



In last months article “Effects of Implementing Adaptive Support Ventilation in a Medical Intensive Care Unit” in the Respiratory Care Journal [1], Chew & colleagues discovered that ASV provided a quicker time to extubation readiness then their standard ventilation protocol.

These results are not surprising, especially after reviewing their standard way of managing ventilator patients. This study was a poor comparison of practitioner guided ventilator management versus an automated ventilator mode.

Let’s compare & contrast the differences in the ASV study group versus the traditional ventilator management there are three (3) main areas to investigate.

Setting T-Low during Airway Pressure Release Ventilation to Achieve Lung Protection Goals

Setting a T-Low based on a 50-75% PEFR may contribute to excessive exhaled tidal volumes

There are three published techniques to set T-Low when utilizing Airway Pressure Release Ventilation (APRV) or mimicking (BiVent, BiLevel) the application.

They include: