{"@type": "dcat:Dataset", "accessLevel": "public", "bureauCode": ["009:25"], "contactPoint": {"@type": "vcard:Contact", "fn": "NIH", "hasEmail": "mailto:info@nih.gov"}, "description": "Background:\n          In recent years, rural hospitals have expanded their scope of\n\t\t\t\tspecialized services, which has led to the development and staffing of rural\n\t\t\t\tintensive care units (ICUs). There is little information about the breadth,\n\t\t\t\tquality or outcomes of these services. This is particularly true for\n\t\t\t\tspecialized ICU services such as mechanical ventilation, where little, if any,\n\t\t\t\tinformation exists specifically for rural hospitals. The long-term objectives\n\t\t\t\tof this project were to evaluate the quality of medical care provided to\n\t\t\t\tmechanically ventilated patients in rural ICUs and to improve patient care\n\t\t\t\tthrough an educational intervention. This paper reports baseline data on\n\t\t\t\tpatient and hospital characteristics for both rural and rural referral\n\t\t\t\thospitals.\n        \n        \n          Results:\n          Twenty Iowa hospitals were evaluated. Data collected on 224\n\t\t\t\tpatients demonstrated a mean age of 70 years and a mean ICU admission Acute\n\t\t\t\tPhysiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score of 22, with an\n\t\t\t\tassociated 36% mortality. Mean length of ICU stay was 10 days, with 7.7\n\t\t\t\tventilated days. Significant differences were found in both institutional and\n\t\t\t\tpatient variables between rural referral hospitals and rural hospitals with\n\t\t\t\tmore limited resources. A subgroup of patients with diagnoses associated with\n\t\t\t\tcomplex ventilation had higher mortality rates than patients without these\n\t\t\t\tconditions. Patients who developed nosocomial events had longer mean ventilator\n\t\t\t\tand ICU days than patients without nosocomial events. This study also found ICU\n\t\t\t\tpractices that frequently fell outside the guidelines recommended by a task\n\t\t\t\tforce describing minimum standards of care for critically ill patients with\n\t\t\t\tacute respiratory failure on mechanical ventilation.\n        \n        \n          Conclusions:\n          Despite distinct differences in the available resources between\n\t\t\t\trural referral and rural hospitals, overall mortality rates of ventilated\n\t\t\t\tpatients are similar. Considering the higher mortality rates observed in\n\t\t\t\tpatients with complicated medical conditions requiring complex ventilation\n\t\t\t\tmanagement, the data may suggest that this subgroup could benefit from\n\t\t\t\ttreatment at a tertiary center with greater resources and technology.", "distribution": [{"@type": "dcat:Distribution", "description": "Visit the original government dataset for complete information, documentation, and data access.", "downloadURL": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC29010/", "mediaType": "text/html", "title": "Official Government Data Source"}], "identifier": "https://healthdata.gov/api/views/s38v-i85f", "issued": "2025-07-13", "keyword": ["hospital-outcomes", "mechanical-ventilation", "nih", "respiratory-failure", "rural-icu"], "landingPage": "https://healthdata.gov/d/s38v-i85f", "modified": "2025-09-06", "programCode": ["009:038"], "publisher": {"@type": "org:Organization", "name": "National Institutes of Health"}, "theme": ["NIH"], "title": "Mechanical ventilation in rural ICUs"}