Introduction and Significance: Catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) is a frequently seen healthcare-associated infection among hospitalized patients. CAUTI poses serious risks of complications like longer hospitalization rates, development of sepsis, greater antibiotic use, and greater healthcare expenditures. As indwelling urinary catheters are often required at a higher rate in the acutely ill population, prevention of CAUTI is crucial to mitigate unnecessary harm. The key role of nurses is involved in inserting and removing indwelling urinary catheters. Thus, a nursing intervention makes a strategy worthwhile for prevention of infection rates (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2024).
Intervention and Evidence: The intervention selected for this project is implementation of a CAUTI prevention bundle for hospitalized adult patients with indwelling urinary catheters. For this purpose, implementing CAUTI prevention bundle practices in hospitalized adult patients who use urinary catheters will be used in this assignment as an evidence-based practice in healthcare. The implementation of prevention bundles in this area has been recommended because it assists in focusing on standard approaches to ensuring proper care of urinary catheters, which may reduce instances of CAUTI (CDC, 2024; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 2017).
Necessity of the project: Despite the availability of guidelines for the evidence-based prevention of CAUTI, rates of CAUTI remain high in many health care facilities because of the inconsistency in the application of the guidelines. The reality in the application of the best practice recommendations in the literature supports the need for the development of a structured infection control bundle to improve compliance and prevent infections in the health care setting (AHRQ, 2017).
What Are We Trying to Improve / Why We Selected This Problem: The reason why our group chose CAUTI prevention as the target for this quality improvement project is that it can be prevented and affects patient safety, length of hospital stay, and healthcare costs directly. The goal of this quality improvement project is to prevent CAUTI infections by enhancing catheter management practices and nursing compliance with best practices for managing CAUTI infections.
PICOT Question: In hospitalized adult patients with indwelling urinary catheters (P), how does implementing a CAUTI prevention bundle (I), compared with standard catheter care without a structured protocol (C), affect CAUTI rates and catheter days (O) within an 8-week implementation period (T)?
Purpose Statement and Outcomes: The aim of the practice improvement project is to assess the efficacy of the CAUTI bundle in preventing CAUTIs in the hospital setting for adults. The criteria for success also include the rate of CAUTIs (per 1,000 catheter-days), the total number of catheter days, as well as nursing compliance with the bundle in the hospital setting by chart audit.
References:
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2017).
Catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) toolkit.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024).
Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI).
EmilyGD
CAUTIs.docx
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