A Pilot Study Investigating the Detection of Episodes of Severe Patient-Ventilator Asynchrony

This is a prospective observational study. All decisions about ventilator settings, mode of ventilation, and sedative doses are determined by the critical care team attending to the patient. Patients will be enrolled within 6 hours after intubation and will be studied continuously until extubation. Patients will be monitored for asynchrony using Syncron-E tablets provided by Autonomous Healthcare. However, clinical staff will be blinded to the results of the tablet, and hence, there will be no change to clinical care.

Asynchrony index (which captures the fraction of breaths with asynchrony) will be calculated every minute by the Syncron-E tablet. The assessment of respiratory therapists at the time of ventilator checks will also be recorded including the following information: i) entering/exiting the room , ii) existence of a severe asynchrony episode based on the respiratory therapist's assessment and its type. Clinical staff will record the start of any severe asynchrony episode that they detect. Data related to the administrations of sedatives and anesthetics as well as major interventions (excluding any PHI) will also be recorded.