Abstract
A national collaborative helped many hospitals dramatically reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), but some hospitals struggled to reduce infection rates. This article describes the development of a peer-to-peer assessment process (CLABSI Conversations) and the practical, actionable practices we discovered that helped intensive care unit teams achieve a CLABSI rate of less than 1 infection per 1000 catheter-days for at least 1 year. CLABSI Conversations was designed as a learning-oriented process, in which a team of peers visited hospitals to surface barriers to infection prevention and to share best practices and insights from successful intensive care units. Common practices led to 10 recommendations: executive and board leaders communicate the goal of zero CLABSI throughout the hospital; senior and unit-level leaders hold themselves accountable for CLABSI rates; unit physicians and nurse leaders own the problem; clinical leaders and infection preventionists build infection prevention training and simulation programs; infection preventionists participate in unit-based CLABSI reduction efforts; hospital managers make compliance with best practices easy; clinical leaders standardize the hospital's catheter insertion and maintenance practices and empower nurses to stop any potentially harmful acts; unit leaders and infection preventionists investigate CLABSIs to identify root causes; and unit nurses and staff audit catheter maintenance policies and practices.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 67-78 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Quality management in health care |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2016 |
Keywords
- CLABSI
- Central line-associated bloodstream infection
- Intensive care unit
- Peer-to-peer assessment
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Leadership and Management
- Health(social science)
- Health Policy
- Care Planning