Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) Prevention with CAUTION

Denali Center (Fairbanks, Alaska)

CSI Summary

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CSI Presentation

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CSI Toolkit

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Project Topic

Preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) and symptomatic urinary tract infection (SUTI)

Hospital Unit

All wings of long-term care facility

CSI Participants

Aminat Alarape-Raji, MPH, CIC
Teresa Hrubes, BSN, RN, COHN-S
Sandy Plummer, RN

Project Goals/Objectives

  1. To reduce the rate of SUTI 20%
  2. To increase compliance with UTI Infection Control Huddle and UTI Protocol to 80%
  3. To decrease antibiotic treatment of “not applicable” UTIs 25%

Project Outcomes

  1. Reduced the UTI rate 49.3%
  2. Achieved 100% compliance with the UTI Infection Control Huddle and UTI Protocol
  3. Reduced utilization of antibiotics for asymptomatic UTIs 44%
  4. These outcomes resulted in an estimated annual fiscal impact of $124,137.

Project Overview

In 2018, the Denali Center long-term care nursing staff and Infection Control department completed a nursing survey to identify practices and knowledge deficits related to the number of overall UTIs and asymptomatic UTIs being inappropriately treated. Nursing staff also provided feedback that the current Infection Control Huddle Form and Order Set was not “user friendly” and made it difficult to interpret the requirements for meeting a UTI criteria.

For our CSI project, nursing staff partnered with Infection Control Prevention and Pharmacy to revise the UTI Infection Control Huddle Form and Standing Order Set. We educated all nursing staff, including CNAs, on the importance of peri-care and proper urinary catheter maintenance and introduced the revised huddle and order set.

After six months, we greatly exceeded our goals. Our next steps are to replicate the process for our other Infection Control Huddle Forms and Order Sets, e.g., pneumonia, gastrointestinal and skin infections. The overall success of the project has resulted in consistent and reliable nursing practice following the huddle and order protocol.

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The materials associated with this AACN Clinical Scene Investigator (CSI) Academy project are the property of the participating hospital noted above, not AACN. Requests to use content contained in the CSI team’s summary, presentation or toolkit should be directed to the hospital. We suggest reaching out to the hospital’s Communications, Marketing or Nursing Education department for assistance.

Disclaimer
The AACN CSI Academy program supports change projects based on quality improvement methods. Although CSI teams seek to ensure linkage between their project and clinical/fiscal outcomes, data cannot be solely attributed to the project and are estimations of impact.