A quality improvement strategy to reduce unintended extubation in the very low birth weight infant: A case report

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Unintended extubations remain a common complication across neonatal intensive care units, with very low birthweight infants being the most vulnerable of them all. Ongoing efforts across different institutions exist with the goal of reducing the rate of unintended extubations to keep a median rate of <2 events per 100 ventilator days as defined by the Vermont Oxford Network. Our objective was to reduce unintended extubations in the very low birthweight infant in a large delivery hospital to ≤2/100 ventilator days. METHODS: A collaborative group was formed between two academic health institutions targeting training and implementation of the Children’s National unintended extubation system, focusing on endotracheal tube securement methods and surveillance protocols. RESULTS: The unintended extubation rate decreased from 3.23 to 0.64 per 100 ventilator days. Changes were implemented from 2018–2020 with a sustained reduction in the unintended extubation rate of 1.54 per 100 ventilator days. Most events occurred between 12 : 00 pm –4 : 00 pm and the commonest cause was spontaneous (25%) followed by dislodgment during repositioning (19%). CONCLUSION: Very low birth weight infants present a challenge to endotracheal tube maintenance due to their developmental and anatomical changes during their neonatal intensive care unit stay. Successful reduction of unintended extubations in the very low birthweight infant can be achieved by adaptation of successful protocols for older infants.