Another Look at Lung-Protective Ventilation Initiated in the ED

We recently covered an article on an intervention for emergency department–initiated lung-protective ventilation that presented results for a subset of patients in a larger study (NEJM JW Emerg Med Mar 3 2017; [e-pub] and Crit Care Med 2017 Feb 2; [e-pub]). Now the researchers have reported results of the full study.

The intervention was a multifaceted educational program that reinforced the importance of low tidal volumes, appropriate positive end-expiratory pressure settings, oxygen weaning, and elevating the head of the bed. The researchers compared the combined occurrence of acute respiratory distress syndrome and “ventilator-associated conditions” (primary outcome) between 490 patients in the preintervention period and 490 in the postin…