To describe 2 years of experience and staff learning curves after the introduction of non-invasive ventilation (NIV).
A prospective, consecutive, strictly observational, 2-year cohort study of all patients treated with NIV in a county general hospital intensive care unit (ICU), with no interventions, was performed.
One hundred and fifty-seven patients with 15 different diagnoses were treated with NIV. An increasing number of patients were treated in the second year and, probably as a result of increased staff experience, the NIV treatment time and overall time spent in the ICU were less in the second year of the study period (30 h vs. 19 h and 55 h vs. 34 h, respectively; P