San Antonio—Although the number of adult patients requiring mechanical ventilation (MV) declined from 2005 to 2011, approximately 9% of the 1,209,185 patients who were admitted to California community hospitals with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) required invasive MV (IMV) within 48 hours of admission. That rate has remained relatively stable over the years (8.7% in 2005 vs. 8.9% in 2011).
Surprisingly, related research revealed that patients with prolonged IMV—or those with a