Literature review
Every year, up to 249,000 BSIs occur within hospitals in the US. Apparently, 32.2% of these BSIs do occur in the ICUs (Chopra, Krein, Olmsted, Safdar & Saint, 2013)The apparent bias in prevalence of BSIs within the ICUs is associated with the increased utilization of the CVCs within these units since they deal with a majority of critical care situations.
The ICUs are associated with over 15 million catheter days while there is indication that only 24.4% of CVC use occurs outside the ICUs (Chopra, Krein, Olmsted, Safdar & Saint, 2013). This implies that millions of patients in the ICUs are at a high likelihood of developing CLABSI
Yaseen et al. (2016) notes that each incidence of CLABSI is associated with an increase in the hospital stay from seven days up to 21 days. This implies costs which range between $37,000 and $45,000. At the national level, the costs for management of the cases of CLABSI that occur are estimated at between $0.67 and $2.68 billion.
The economic burden on families as well as the psychological torture that patients and their families undergo in the event of CLABSI is significantly high and this is a major justification point for the healthcare stakeholders to implement specific and responsive measures to prevent occurrence of CLABSI (Sacks et al., 2014)
Committee members
Med-Surg Unit
The Medical Officer
The Charge Nurses
The Quality Controller Nurse
Intensive Care Unit
Case Manager
Critical Care Nurse
Charge Nurses
Consulting
Horan, T. C. (2010). Central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) criteria and case studies. Retrieved from
The IC department performs about 20 reviews a quarter utilizing the Bloodstream surveillance checklist tool to monitor for PICC/Central Line compliance. Hand sanitizer rewards are now being given to staff that has 100% in the process measure to increase CLABSI compliance. Our facility is engaged in the Hospital Improvement and Innovative Network (HIIN) formerly the Maryland-Virginia HAI Improvement Network is the hospital-wide collaborative to reduce CLABSIs. This 5-year initiative is an affiliation of the Medicare Quality Innovation Network Quality Improvement Organization for Maryland and Virginia, through Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The initiative offers support efforts to improve health care quality and achieve
Healthcare-associated infections from invasive medical devices are linked to high morbidity, mortality, and costs worldwide. Especially in central line–associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) or catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI) and
Clinicians recognize risk factors assess, better diagnose and manage patients and reduce mortality rates. (Trenary, 2007)Describes how Banner Health Care System uses a system called eICU where patients are cared for by intensivists, experienced critical care nurses and health unit secretaries working from a remote location on the campus of Banner Desert Medical Centre. From this location care clinicians can see and hear six different units in five different hospitals .Their aim is to increase this added support to all ICU patients within their Banner Health Care System across the seven states in twenty different facilities. .Using the eICU system the ICU rooms are fitted with a camera, microphone and a speaker .The camera is activated when initiated by the bedside team when there is an alert received from the eICU system .There is no recording availability so the system is HIPAA compliant .This system adds an additional support to the nurse patient ration at bedside. A similar system is used in the Ob department to support the nurses and help to reduce complications during childbirth
Article by Clancy (2009) explained central lines were a result of an estimated 250,000 blood stream infections and accounted for 30,000 to 62,000 patient deaths, then adding that each infection cost upwards of $36,000 and cumulatively add up to at least $9 billion in preventable costs annually. The article also explains how the mindset has changed from the cost of having a central line in place and expecting complications to lowering infection rates by an intentional interventional process/s. The article speaks of 5 basic steps to reduce CLABSI, hand washing, insertion techniques, skin cleansing, avoidance of certain sites and earlier removal of the CVC. Studies showed that these guidelines were only followed 62% of the time. The system was changed to ascertain that all the clinicians were in compliance. This prompted 5 interventions, education, a CVC insertion cart with all necessary equipment, physicians having to validate central line necessity, a concise checklist for bedside clinicians and the empower of nurses to stop procedures if guidelines were not followed. These low cost interventions from 11.3/1000 in catheter days in 1998 to zero in the fourth quarter of 2002.
There have been many studies documented in the literature regarding the reduction of CLABSIs. The majority of the studies have reported statistically significant decreases in CLABSI rates post-implementation of a quality improvement initiative (O‟Grady et al., 2011). Some studies used approaches in which multiple strategies have been implemented together to improve compliance with the use of evidence-based guidelines. A seminal study conducted by Pronovost et al. (2006), known as the Keystone ICU project, included a collaborative cohort of 108 ICUs within the state of Michigan. The strategies in this study included the use of five evidence-based bloodstream infection prevention practices for CVC insertions, use of a checklist to ensure adherence
The use of disinfecting Curos™ caps must be a routine practice on all oncology floors. This change can readily be implemented, as it does not take much training to learn how to use. The Curos™ caps should also be implemented already existing CLABSI prevention bundles. Considering the 12-25% high mortality rates of CLABSI, implementing the disinfecting caps could reduce the rates of CLABSI by as much as 66% (Whitfield& Lowe, 2013). According to Ramirez, Lee, & and Welch(2014) “ During 2010,the CLABSI rate reduced from 1.9 to 0.5 per 1,000 catheter days during a one-year trial period. Furthermore, compliance to CLABSI prevention bundles increased from 63% to 80% when implementing the disinfecting Curos ™ caps. This high
Catheter related bloodstream infections are not only responsible for prolonged hospital stays and increased hospital costs, it is also responsible for increased mortality of the hospitalized patients. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017), an estimate of 30,100 central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) occur in intensive care units and wards of U.S. acute care facilities each year. CLABSI is a serious hospital-acquired infection that occurs when bacteria enters the bloodstream through central venous catheters. CLABSI is preventable as long as health-care personnel practice aseptic techniques when working with the catheter. A blood culture swabbed from the tip of the catheter is needed to confirm the
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
Risks for late onset infection are long term catheter use in a blood vessel and/or an extended stay in the hospital.
In 2013, a magnet recognized hospital, Baptist Health Lexington, reduced CAUTI rates in ICU patients by 60% (Roser, Piercy & Altpeter, 2014). The study included six interventions that were followed by the staff in the effort to reduce CAUTI. The six interventions included: “communication of CAUTI data to interdisciplinary teams, a nurse-driven, physician approved protocol, problem analysis using Lean principles, daily unit-based surveillance rounds, silver alloy urinary catheters, and an antimicrobial bundle comprised of two cleansing products for patients with an indwelling urinary catheter” (Roser, Piercy & Altpeter, 2014). The nurse-physician protocol allowed for nurses to assess whether the catheter was still necessary and if found not to be, the nurse could discontinue it. This resulted in a 58% decrease in the number of catheters used (Roser, Piercy & Altpeter, 2014). An education session was implemented by nurses using principles from the Lean system that checked the capability of nurses to understand just how dangerous CAUTI can be. It was found that no single intervention alone could reduce the occurrence of CAUTI development. Nurses must integrate several interventions to have an effective result at lowering the rates. However, this particular study found that after the use of the antimicrobial bundle, rates of CAUTI did decline. Roser et al. (2014) emphasized that education and awareness of
BMETs can help improve patient safety and quality of care in the ICU. BMETs can enhance patient safety by constantly maintaining the medical equipment performance, and ensure that medical equipment works sufficiently. Also, BMETs can help improve the quality of care in the ICU by reducing patient injury and harms by avoiding ineffective care, such as underuse or overuse the medical equipment. Additionally, delivering maintenance for the medical equipment, responding to critical situations in timely manner, and avoiding delays that may cause harms to the patients are important approaches that BMETs should do in order to improve quality of care and patient safety in the ICU. Also, BMETs should provide care based on the staff and patient needs,
Brusch says, “Once a indwelling catheter is placed, the daily incidence of bacteriuria can be between 3-10%.” Another large problem that results CAUTI’s is that at times, catheters are left in a patient longer than necessary. Prolonged use of
1) Summary of Article: A review of literature shows the length of time a catheter remains in the body is directly associated with CAUTI.