National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs), established in 2002 by the Joint Commission, is to help accredited organizations address specific areas of concern in regard to patient safety ("Catheter-Associated," 2015). NPSG.07.06.01 Implement evidence-based practices to prevent indwelling catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) is a 2015 NPSG ("The Joint Commission," 2015). Our facility has 1.32 CAUTIs per 1000 device days (Carson, 2015). Decreasing CAUTIs can be achieved with a strict goal, addressing the financial implications, interdisciplinary collaboration, nursing leadership, a measurement tool, and discussing the future healthcare delivery methods.
Goal
Urinary tract infections are the most common type of healthcare infection, and CAUTI is the 2nd most common cause of nosocomial bloodstream infection in the healthcare setting. ("Catheter Associated Urinary Tract," 2011). The goal of our facility is to reduce CAUTIs by 50% by the end of the year, measured by the quality department on a monthly basis, and implemented through performance improvement factors including the interdisciplinary team through a strong focus on the nursing leadership team.
Financial Implications
According to a study conducted in 2011 by the government, approximately 80% of urinary tract infections associated with indwelling catheters, increase the hospital length of stay by one to three days, and according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), have an annual cost of
Radley, D., Wasserman, M., Olsho, L., Shoemaker, S., Spranca, M., & Bradshaw, B. (2013). Reduction in medications errors in hospitals due to adop
Nurses lacked knowledge in the use and was unaware of the importance of the underlying evidence- base recommended criteria’s indicated on the nurse driven protocol to remove inappropriate UC’s. A nurse driven indwelling catheter removal protocol is an evidence base tool recommended by infection control organization and experts for the early removal of unnecessary or inappropriately placed urinary catheters (UC). Evidence shows that urinary catheters are the source of catheter associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI). CAUTI, is the leading cause of hospital acquired infections in the United States. The purpose of this evidence-based quality project is to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention on the importance and use of the nurse driven protocol on nurses ' knowledge and CAUTI rates.
1) Summary of Article: Indwelling catheter use is common, but so are infections associated with them. About 80 percent of all urinary tract infections in hospitals are caused by catheters, and about 20 percent of all hospital infections total are UTIs. Evidence-based practice should be used for insertion, maintenance, and removal. Catheters should not be left in longer than they need to be. Unfortunately, this research shows poor administrative efforts are to blame for
Joint Commission released national patient safety goals for hospitals in January of 2016. These patient safety goals were “established to help accredited organizations address specific areas of concern in regards to patient safety” (Facts about the National Patient Safety Goals, 2015). National patient safety goal 07.06.01 focuses on the prevention of catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) in hospitalized patients. Evidence based practice should be implemented to stop these common infections occurring in patients nationwide. Indwelling urinary catheters are only recommended in certain patients, for example to prevent further breakdown of sacral wounds or pressure ulcers in incontinent patients, for comfort in end of life care
Urinary tract infections are one of the most hospital-acquired infections in the country. With so much technology and evidence based practice, why is this still an ongoing problem worldwide? Could it simply be the basics of hygiene or just patient negligence? The purpose of this paper is to identify multiple studies that have been done to reduce or prevent hospital associated urinary tract infections. In these articles you will find the use of different interventions that will aid in lowering the risk of these hospital acquired infections.
Also another serious complication of CAUTI is BSI (Blood stream infections) that can be fatal if not caught and treated promptly. “The Clinical Performance of Quality Health Care, along with Joint Commission” offers standards and objectives for facilities to assess measure and improve their standards at the lowest cost possible. The database covers nursing care and education, along with guidelines on prevention. Moreover the JCAHO regulatory standards for catheterized patients are explained and the documentation that is expected when JCAHO inspections are rendered in a facility. The source “Stop orders to reduce inappropriate urinary catheterization in hospitalized patients” states that by following standard precautions with every patient these infections can be prevented. . Also the source explored whether catheters should be used at all in an effort to decrease the incidence of CAUTI’s. Intermittent catheterizations along with supra-pubic were explored with a decreased incidence of bacteria being present in the bladder afterwards. The source “Strategies to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections in acute care hospitals” offered ways of cleansing and disinfecting the skin before insertion to reduce the risk of infection. Many CAUTI’s are linked to bacteria harboring in or around the site at insertion. By using not only aseptic technique but also cleansing the skin with chlorhexadine can decrease he incidence of infection
The first step nurses can take to decrease the incidents of CAUTIs in older adults is avoiding unnecessary use of catheters altogether. Initially, this begins with nurses knowing both appropriate and inappropriate situations in which a catheter should be utilized. According to (Gould et al., 2017), an appropriate situation is one where a patient has acute urinary retention or bladder obstruction, whereas an inappropriate situation is one where a catheter is being used a means of obtaining urine for culture when the patient can voluntarily void. Nurses can also use basic techniques like palpation, percussion, and inspection to effectively assess urinary retention, which is the main reason for catheterization as mentioned earlier. When techniques like this do not achieve desired results,
Patient safety and hospital acquired infections (HAI) are deemed highly important in the health care setting. My organization uses quality indicators pulled from EPIC, which is our health information system, to ensure we are meeting regulations for catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI). Data includes rates of infections, length of foley catheter placement, reasons for foley placement, as well as facility specific documentation that is used to aide in the prevention of CAUTI. By pulling this data, one could identify trends affecting rate of infections. This may lead to a change in policy or procedure that can improve the rate of infections for those patients with foley catheters. Thus decreasing the percentage of HAI’s for
The PICO question is as follows: In hospitalized patients who are susceptible to catheter associated Urinary Tract infection (CAUTI), if nurses and other assistive personnel develop an action plan with a systematic team approach of evidence-based infection control practices, compared to current practices, could it reduce or eliminate incidences of CAUTI?
Usage of indwelling urinary catheters in critically ill patients can seem to be a permanent fixture in intensive care units. Most critical care nurse expect their patients to have an indwelling urinary catheter (IUC) in place without much regard to the risk of catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) or the ability to implement IUC alternatives. Critical care patients may require IUC usage due to diagnosis, need for accurate hourly intake and output measurements, or other specified documented reasons. The risk of acquiring a catheter associated urinary tract infections is a result of IUC usage. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Guideline for Prevention of Catheter-associated
Patient safety one of the driving forces of healthcare. Patient safety is defined as, “ the absence of preventable harm to a patient during the process of healthcare or as the prevention of errors and adverse events caused by the provision of healthcare rather than the patient’s underlying disease process. (Kangasniemi, Vaismoradi, Jasper, &Turunen, 2013)”. It was just as important in the past as it is day. Our healthcare field continues to strive to make improvement toward safer care for patients across the country.
This article does not provide the search strategy including a number of databases and other resources which identify key published and unpublished research. In this article, both the primary sources and the theoretical literatures are collected and appraised in order to generate the research question and to conduct knowledge-based research. In the section of the literature review, nineteen professional articles are appraised in order to provide the significance and background of the study. Saint develops the research question based on these analyses. “Catheter-associated urinary tract infections in surgical patients: A controlled study on the excess morbidity and costs” is one of the primary sources written by Givens and Wenzel who conduct and analyze this study. In addition, “Clinical and economic consequences of nosocomial catheter-related bacteriuria” is a review of a literature article which is the secondary source. Although many studies state that patient safety is a top priority and CAUTI can be controlled by the caution of health care providers, the infection rate is relatively high among other nosocomial infections. One of the reasons Saint and colleagues uncovered is unawareness and negligence by health care
The most common health care associated infection (HAI) is CAUTI. Forty percent of all hospital-acquired infections are UTIs and 80% of these are directly linked to having an indwelling urinary catheter in place (Underwood, 2015). Urinary catheters are required in up to 25% of hospitalized patients and bacteriuria results in about 25% of patients with a catheter for greater than 5 days and this number increases by 1 to 5% for each day the catheter is in place after that. The harmful consequences of CAUTI include increased length of stay, higher health care cost, and increased mortality. CAUTI is known to cost health care in the U.S. $400-$500 million annually (Leuck et al., 2015).
The Quality Improvement nursing process that I have chosen to research is patient safety. I have chosen to focus specifically on the topic of catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI’s) during hospitalization and their preventions. It is estimated that 15-25% of hospitalized patients receive a urinary catheter throughout their stay, whether or not they need it. A large 80% of all patients diagnosed with a urinary tract infection (UTI) can be attributed to a catheter (Bernard, Hunter, and Moore, 2012). The bacteria may gain entry into the bladder during insertion of the catheter, during manipulation of the catheter or drainage system, around the catheter, and after removal.
Among 85,461 patients, all groups except younger female surgical patients had higher catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) rates than male