Paramedical Protocol for Ventilation in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Overview

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a frequent pathology in intensive care (around 10% of patients admitted to intensive care and almost a quarter of patients on mechanical ventilation) and a serious one, with a hospital mortality rate of 40%. The main measures that have an effect on mortality in ARDS involve adjustments to the ventilator, known as protective ventilation. In the most severe patients, adjuvant measures such as prone positioning and the use of curarisation in the initial phase of the disease can improve survival. All these measures have been included in the latest national and international recommendations. However, a vast observational study carried out in 50 countries revealed low compliance with these recommendations. More than a third of patients did not receive protective ventilation, and the majority did not receive prone positioning when this was indicated. During weaning from artificial ventilation, it has been widely demonstrated that replacing clinician judgement with the implementation of paramedical care protocols improved weaning and significantly reduced the duration of artificial ventilation. Therefore, investigators hypothesize that the implementation of a paramedical care protocol for ventilation in the acute phase of ARDS improves compliance with recommendations and thus reduces mortality and the duration of artificial ventilation. However, implementation of such a protocol requires operational training for all the nurses in the participating departments. Simulation appears to be the training method of choice, as it is a teaching technique that enables technical and non-technical skills to be passed on with good retention of what has been learnt, as well as assessing what has been learnt. To make it possible to train several dozen nurses within a tight timescale, a partially dematerialized simulation model incorporating innovative e-learning tools will be developed.