Should Ventilator-Associated Events become a Quality Indicator for ICUs?

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention replaced their longstanding ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) definitions with ventilator-associated event (VAE) definitions in 2013. Controversy abounds as to whether VAE definitions are potentially suitable to serve as quality indicators for ICUs. On the pro side, VAE definitions overcome many of the weaknesses of traditional VAP surveillance. VAE definitions are objective, reproducible, electronically computable, and strongly predict poor outcomes for patients. There is an increasing amount of data on clinical correlates, risk factors, and approaches to prevent VAEs. Potential strategies to prevent VAEs are highly aligned with accepted best practices in critical care. VAE surveillance therefore has the potential to catalyze better care and to help hospitals track outcomes in ventilated patients more rigorously and more efficiently. On the con side, the complete VAE definition set with subtiers is complicated, neither sensitive nor specific for VAP, non-physiological compared with other ICU metrics, susceptible to gaming, and may bring about changes in clinician behavior that could paradoxically end up harming patients.