Ventilator Associated Pneumonia

VAP

clinical

Updated 5/16/2026

Definition

Hospital-acquired infection occurring in mechanically ventilated patients, tracked as a key HAI quality metric using ICD-10 codes in EHR and claims systems. VAP rates are reported to CMS and The Joint Commission, requiring integration of ventilator duration data, microbiology results, and nursing assessment data in clinical analytics platforms.

Standard Abbreviation

VAP

Database Usage

-- Example column naming
CREATE TABLE claims (
  clm_id VARCHAR(50),
  vap VARCHAR(100),  -- Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (max 100 chars)
  ...
);

-- Example in SELECT
SELECT
  clm_id,
  vap as ventilator_associated_pneumonia
FROM claims;

Common uses in healthcare data

Risk stratification and population health analytics
CMS-HCC risk adjustment and RAF score calculation
Quality measure attribution and HEDIS reporting
Clinical data warehouse schema design
Value-based care contract performance tracking

Example database column name

ISO-11179 snake_case standard

-- Recommended column name
vap

-- Example DDL
CREATE TABLE healthcare_data (
  record_id   VARCHAR(50)   NOT NULL,
  vap          VARCHAR(100),  -- Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (max 100 chars)
  created_dt  TIMESTAMP     NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW()
);

Column names follow the ISO-11179 naming convention: lowercase, underscore-separated, using the standard abbreviation as a prefix where applicable.

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