Promoting NIV using ICEMAN methodology
Authors: Sundaram Manu , Ram Ashwath , Medina Alberto , Pons-Odena Marti 
Published: December 2019

One of the main reasons for children needing hospital admission is the need for respiratory support and monitoring. Intubation and ventilation has been the standard method of supporting patients in respiratory failure. With better ventilators and interfaces many of these children with respiratory failure could benefit from non-invasive ventilation (NIV). The main advantages of NIV over its invasive counterpart are reduced need for sedation, avoiding laryngeal and tracheal injuries, reducing nosocomial infections, and shorter length of stay.

NIV can be used for acute conditions. Studies have shown that NIV is more successful in type 2 respiratory failure compared to type 1 respiratory failure as in type 2 respiratory failure, a failing pump is replaced by another pump i.e., NIV machine.

With improvement in technology NIV has emerged as a core therapy in the management of patients with acute and chronic respiratory failure. Use of NIV has not spread worldwide. Even in the countries where they are being used, there is huge variability in the use of NIV. This reluctance in usage could be partly explained by the lack of adequate scientific literature in children concerning this technology.

The first thing to do to overcome this barrier is to create an understanding and familiarity of this technology, resulting in more usage of NIV which has been shown to improve the quality of care and reduce cost of healthcare.

A FAST-NIVT (Forwarding Advanced Simulation Training in Noninvasive Ventilation Therapy) project supported by the Respiratory group of ESPNIC (European Society of Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care) has developed blended courses (online and face to face) for attendees and for NIV trainers in order to promote the teaching and learning of NIV around the world.

As an extension of this project we have developed a structured algorithm with the acronym ICEMAN () and used it to train our clinicians in the judicious selection of patients, contraindications and equipment used for NIV. This approach helps the teams to recognize failure of non-invasive ventilation, troubleshoot hypercapnia and hypoxemia, manage asynchrony and plan for weaning or escalation of care using algorithms.

We have conducted workshops globally to provide clinicians with best practice recommendations and guidance about how to best deliver non-invasive ventilation to patients who sometimes need this lifesaving technology. By attending this workshop, delegates would be able to understand the various indications, NIV options, modes of delivery, effective monitoring, and analysing failures which will definitely go a long way in providing this care more effectively with less failure.

All the workshops are led by trained educators who are experienced practicing paediatric intensivists, neonatologists, and pulmonologists with an extensive NIV experience. To make learning fun and to encourage participation, high-quality learning materials and skill stations have been tailored to the needs of each group. This methodology has been successfully used to train the next generation of clinical champions.