Nonventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia (NV-HAP) is among the most common hospitalacquired infections. The purpose of our study was to quantify the incidence and influence of NV-HAP in the United States using a national dataset. Methods: The 2012 US National Inpatient Sample dataset was used to compare an NV-HAP group to 4 additional group cohorts: pneumonia on admission, general hospital admissions, matched on mortality and disease severity, and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). The

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... outcome was NV-HAP incidence. The secondary outcome was to compare hospital length of stay, total hospital charges, and mortality between the NV-HAP group and the 4 additional group cohorts. Results: The overall incidence of NV-HAP was 1.6%, which represents a rate of 3.63 per 1,000 patientdays. NV-HAP was associated with increased total hospital charges, a longer hospital length of stay, and greater likelihood of death in comparison to all groups except patients with VAP. Conclusion: NV-HAP is an underappreciated and serious patient safety issue, resulting in significant increases in cost, length of stay, and mortality. Efforts toward prevention of NV-HAP should be raised to the same level of concern as VAP prevention. Hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is a common health careacquired infection (HAI) worldwide, 1 occurring at a rate of up to 21 cases per 1,000 hospital admissions. 2 HAP includes 2 distinct subgroups: nonventilator HAP (NV-HAP) and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). 3 Results from a multistate point-prevalence survey using the National Healthcare Safety Network criteria for HAIs suggest that NV-HAP and VAP combined accounted for 21.8% (95% confidence interval, 18.4-25.6) of all HAIs in the United States during 2011. This is equivalent to 157,500 infections (95% confidence interval, 50,800-281,400), with 60.9% of these classified as NV-HAP. 4 ] [7]