Impact of a dedicated ventilatory support team on how mechanical ventilation is employed in a tertiary-care hospital.

Advances in our knowledge of the pathophysiology of respiratory failure have forced major revisions of our approach to ventilatory support. We describe how mechanical ventilation is employed in four different ICUs (surgical, clinical, cardiac and neurological) of a tertiary-care Brazilian hospital where a ventilatory support team composed of intensivists is responsible for a daily-basis follow up.