An endotracheal tube (ETT) is a tube inserted into a child’s airway to help them breathe. When the tube becomes dislodged or falls out, it is called an unplanned extubation (UE).
Our teams are highly trained to maintain your child’s breathing tube while they are in the hospital. We use special techniques to secure the tube and always have two people present when your child needs to be repositioned or undergo a procedure. We also remove the ET tube as soon as it is no longer needed.
When a child experiences an unplanned extubation, they can become sicker and may need to undergo an additional procedure to reinsert their breathing tube.
We measure unplanned extubations per 100 ventilator days. Each day that a child is on a ventilator with a breathing tube in place counts as one ventilator day. We compare ourselves to other children’s hospitals in Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS).
In 2023 our unplanned extubation rate was 1.432 per 100 ventilator days.
