Sustained Improvement in Tracheal Intubation Safety Across a 15-Center Quality-Improvement Collaborative: An Interventional Study From the National Emergency Airway Registry for Children Investigators

Crit Care Med. 2021 Feb 1;49(2):250-260. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0000000000004725.

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate the effect of a tracheal intubation safety bundle on adverse tracheal intubation-associated events across 15 PICUs.

Design: Multicenter time-series study.

Setting: PICUs in the United States.

Patients: All patients received tracheal intubations in ICUs.

Interventions: We implemented a tracheal intubation safety bundle as a quality-improvement intervention that includes: 1) quarterly site benchmark performance report and 2) airway safety checklists (preprocedure risk factor, approach, and role planning, preprocedure bedside "time-out," and immediate postprocedure debriefing). We define each quality-improvement phase as baseline (-24 to -12 mo before checklist implementation), benchmark performance reporting only (-12 to 0 mo before checklist implementation), implementation (checklist implementation start to time achieving > 80% bundle adherence), early bundle adherence (0-12 mo), and sustained (late) bundle adherence (12-24 mo). Bundle adherence was defined a priori as greater than 80% of checklist use for tracheal intubations for 3 consecutive months.

Measurements and main results: The primary outcome was the adverse tracheal intubation-associated event, and secondary outcomes included severe tracheal intubation-associated events, multiple tracheal intubation attempts, and hypoxemia less than 80%.From January 2013 to December 2015, out of 19 participating PICUs, 15 ICUs (79%) achieved bundle adherence. Among the 15 ICUs, the adverse tracheal intubation-associated event rates were baseline phase: 217/1,241 (17.5%), benchmark reporting only phase: 257/1,750 (14.7%), early 0-12 month complete bundle compliance phase: 247/1,591 (15.5%), and late 12-24 month complete bundle compliance phase: 137/1,002 (13.7%). After adjusting for patient characteristics and clustering by site, the adverse tracheal intubation-associated event rate significantly decreased compared with baseline: benchmark: odds ratio, 0.83 (0.72-0.97; p = 0.016); early bundle: odds ratio, 0.80 (0.63-1.02; p = 0.074); and late bundle odds ratio, 0.63 (0.47-0.83; p = 0.001).

Conclusions: Effective implementation of a quality-improvement bundle was associated with a decrease in the adverse tracheal intubation-associated event that was sustained for 24 months.

Publication types

  • Multicenter Study
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Critical Illness
  • Databases, Factual
  • Emergency Service, Hospital / organization & administration
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Intensive Care Units, Pediatric / organization & administration*
  • Intubation, Intratracheal / methods*
  • Male
  • Outcome Assessment, Health Care
  • Quality Improvement / organization & administration*
  • Registries
  • Respiration, Artificial / statistics & numerical data*