Medtech Innovation Briefings have recently been introduced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to support NHS and commissioners considering using new medical devices and medical technologies. SUZANNE CALLANDER reports on some of the latest briefings.
One of the recent Medtech Innovation Briefings looks at an oral tracheal tube that is intended to help prevent microaspiration of fluid into the lungs, which can cause ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP).
VAP is a healthcare-associated infection (HCAI) that occurs 48 hours or more after intubation with an endotracheal or tracheostomy tube, and was not present before intubation.
The precise number of NHS patients having mechanical ventilation each year is unknown. However, the incidence of prolonged mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients in one healthcare region of the UK was reported as 4.4 per 100 ICU admissions and 6.3 per 100 ventilated ICU admissions. Further, in 2011, Lone and Walsh1 found that one-in-16 ventilated patients needed prolonged mechanical ventilation.
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