Which practice is commonly recommended to help prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia?

• A. Monitor vital signs, change ventilator tubing
• B. Withhold oral care
• C. Use reusable suction equipment
• D. Maintain high humidity

Answer: (A)

Preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia hinges on keeping the ventilator circuit clean and watching the patient closely for early signs of infection. Regularly monitoring vital signs helps spot deterioration or sepsis promptly, guiding timely intervention. Preserving a closed ventilator circuit is also key—changing the tubing routinely can break the closed system and introduce pathogens, so tubing should be changed only for a specific reason such as contamination, a leak, or malfunction. The other practices would raise, rather than reduce, pneumonia risk: withholding oral care increases the oral bacterial load; reusable suction equipment can transfer organisms between patients; and maintaining humidity at an excessively high level can foster microbial growth.