Oral care, which typically involves the nurse or patient brushing and flossing the patient’s teeth and inspecting the mouth, is commonly performed in the morning, at bedtime, and after meals. Oral care removes soft plaque deposits and calculus from the teeth, cleans and massages the gums, reduces mouth odor, provides comfort, and reduces the risk of infection.

Patients who are intubated and receiving mechanical ventilation require oral care more frequently because mechanical ventilation dries the oral mucosa and affects salivary flow, increasing the risk for infection.¹ Oral care should be performed every 2 to 4 hours in these patients. In 2010, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement added daily oral care with chlorhexidine to its ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) prevention bundle because evidence shows that it helps prevent VAP when combined with
the other bundle elements—elevating the head of the patient 30 to 45 degrees, interrupting sedation daily and assessing readiness to wean, and providing peptic ulcer disease and deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis, unless contraindicated.²