New way to reduce hospital infections

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A simple written reminder can reduce the number of days a hospital patient spends on a catheter.
Nearly half of all hospital infections are urinary tract infections (UTIs) and urinary catheters, left in too long, are a major cause of them. A team at the University of Michigan now reports on how the time a patient spends attached to a catheter can be reduced.

They had nurses write a simple reminder on the patient's chart suggesting the catheter could be removed by the doctor after two days. This had the effect of reducing the amount of time the patient spent on the catheter during their stay. Without the reminder, many doctors tend to forget who is on a catheter and how long it has been there for. This exposes the patient to the risk of infection unnecessarily. Further study should show if the catheter reminder system can reduce the number of UTIs experienced by hospital patients.

Source
Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, August 2005 issue