Quality reporting: Ventilator-associated pneumonia rates as hospital quality benchmark

Commonwealth Fund: Ventilator-associated pneumonia rates are increasingly being used to benchmark hospitals’ performance and reward better care. However, accurate diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia is challenging, and there is substantial subjectivity in the current surveillance definition. The authors conclude that ventilator-associated pneumonia should be excluded from compulsory reporting initiatives until objective outcome measures for these patients are validated. M. Klompas and R. Platt (2007) Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia-The Wrong Quality Measure for Benchmarking. Annals of Internal Medicine 147, 803–805.