It takes a multi-disciplinary team implementing a variety of tools: critieria for putting catheters in, managing them appropriately once they are in, and developing protocols for removing them as quickly as possible, he adds.
“Having all those elements in place are critical to preventing CAUTI and I think many hospitals around the country have not implemented all of those strategies to reduce CAUTI,” says Dr. Flanders, professor of medicine and director of hospital medicine at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor. “No single strategy used in isolation is going to be effective.”
Efforts to reduce CAUTIs have been launched more recently than efforts to reduce other infection types, he says.
“There’s been less of a drive for CAUTI,” he says. “It’s a tougher problem to tackle than some of these other issues, which is a contributing factor in the lower rate of improvement.” TH
Tom Collins is a freelance writer in South Florida.