A study was conducted to describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes of adult patients with COVID-19 requiring weaning from prolonged mechanical ventilation. The study included patients admitted to two long-term acute care hospitals in the U.S. from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020.
During the study period, 215 COVID-19 patients were transferred to long-term acute cure hospitals. Of these, 158 patients had respiratory failure caused by SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia and required weaning from prolonged mechanical ventilation. Prior to long-term acute care transfer, the median length of stay at the acute care hopistal was 41 days and the median number of ventilator days was 35. The median age of patients include in the study was 69 years. 34.8% of the patients were women and 91.8% had at least one comorbidity (primarily hypertension and diabetes).
The percent of weaning success was 70.9%. Success weaning duration was 8 days and mortality was 9.6%. 19% of patients were discharged home; 70.3% were discharged to other facilities while 1.3% remained in the long-term acute care hospitals.
Overall, this analysis shows that patients with COVID-19 who were transferred to long-term acute care were successfully weaning from prolonged mechanical ventilation.
Soruce: Critical Care Medicine
Image Credit: iStock
