Concordance between the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) Surveillance Criteria and Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score (CPIS) Criteria for Diagnosis of Ventilator-associated Pneumonia (VAP)

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is one of the most common hospital-acquired infections among mechanically ventilated patients and the incidence rates are widely used as an index of quality of care given in an ICU. Since there is no gold standard method available to diagnose VAP, the incidence rate varies based on different criteria used for calculation. Therefore, we conducted a study to determine the concordance between the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) surveillance criteria and clinical pulmonary infection score (CPIS) criteria for the diagnosis of VAP.

Materials and methods: This was a prospective study that evaluated patients in the medical intensive care units (MICUs) of a tertiary care hospital, India, who were intubated for >48 hours between October 2018 and September 2019. All the patients (n = 273) were followed up daily and assessed using both CPIS and NHSN surveillance criteria for diagnosing VAP.

Results: Of these 273 patients, 93 patients (34.1%) had VAP according to CPIS criteria as compared with 33 patients (12.1%) using the NHSN criteria. The corresponding rates of VAP were 39.59 vs 11.53 cases per 1,000 ventilator days, respectively. The agreement of the two sets of criteria was fairly good (kappa statistics, 0.42)

Conclusion: The NHSN surveillance criteria have a lower sensitivity in detecting VAP cases and have to be modified to achieve better results.

How to cite this article: Gunalan A, Sistla S, Sastry AS, Venkateswaran R. Concordance between the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) Surveillance Criteria and Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score (CPIS) Criteria for Diagnosis of Ventilator-associated Pneumonia (VAP). Indian J Crit Care Med 2021;25(3):296–298.

Fast reshaping of intensive care unit facilities in a large metropolitan hospital in Milan, Italy: facing the COVID-19 pandemic emergency

At the end of 2019, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak spread from China all around the world, causing thousands of deaths. In Italy, the hardest hit region was Lombardy, with the first reported case on 20 February 2020. San Raffaele Scientific Institute — a large tertiary hospital and research centre in Milan, Italy — was immediately involved in the management of the public health emergency. Since the beginning of the outbreak, the elective surgical activity of the hospital was rapidly reduced and large areas of the hospital were simultaneously reorganised to admit and assist patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In addition, the hospital became the regional referral hub for cardiovascular emergencies in order to keep ensuring a high level of health care to non-COVID-19 patients in northern Italy. In a few days, a COVID-19 emergency department was created, improving the general ward capacity to a total number of 279 beds dedicated to patients with COVID-19. Moreover, the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds was increased from 28 to 72 (54 of them dedicated to patients with COVID-19, and 18 to cardiology and cardiac surgery hub emergencies), both converting pre-existing areas and creating new high technology spaces. All the involved health care personnel were rapidly trained to use personal protection equipment and to manage this particular category of patients both in general wards and ICUs. Furthermore, besides clinical activities, continuously important research projects were carried out in order to find new strategies and more effective therapies to better face an unprecedented health emergency in Italy.