2 Quality Improvement Decreasing Ventilator Associated Pneumonia Pneumonia of any kind can be detrimental to one’s health. When a person develops pneumonia due to being on a ventilator, this is called a ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) (Ventilator-associated Pneumonia (VAP), 2010). This is a problem because the person would typically would not have developed pneumonia if they were not on a ventilator. Marquis & Huston 2017 reference that many organizations are comparing themselves with other hospitals to create benchmarks as to how many patients they have that develop pneumonia while on a ventilator. In 2005, ("Guidelines for the Management of Adults with Hospital-acquired, Ventilator-associated, and Healthcare-associated Pneumonia," 2005) introduced guidelines on the care and treatment of patients to reduce and prevent getting a VAP. Most health care providers intent to is do no harm, it has been found that many providers create errors due to faulty systems, processes and procedures, not due to a personal maliciousness (To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System - Pubmed, 2000). The Problem Ventilator Associated Pneumonia increase a hospital stay by seven to nine day (2005).
