Evidence-Based Practices for Reducing Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections in Healthcare Organizations
Overview
This paper examines the credibility of evidence and resources for implementing Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) to reduce Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI) in healthcare settings. It outlines a seven-step EBP approach that integrates clinical expertise, patient preferences, and literature evidence to address the significant clinical and financial burden of CAUTI in U.S. healthcare organizations.
What this coursework covers
- Introduction to CAUTI as a healthcare challenge and its prevalence and costs in the U.S. healthcare system
- First and second steps of EBP: cultivating inquiry spirit and developing clinical questions using PICOT framework
- Third through fifth steps of EBP: searching for evidence, appraising evidence quality, and implementing findings in clinical practice
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Determining the Credibility of Evidence and Resources
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Determining the Credibility of Evidence and Resources
Infection is a major challenge in the healthcare system despite evidence that best practices reduce infection cases. Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection (CAUTI) is frequently observed in infectious diseases. In the United States, almost 449,000 CAUTIs occur healthcare organizations each year, costing the government about $450 million (Parker et al., 2017). There is a need to formulate a problem-solving approach combining the ultimate Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) integrated from the literature and patient care records data inclined through the clinical expertise and preference of patients. There are seven steps involving EBP practice to reduce the incidences of CAUTI in most hospitals.
The first step involves cultivating the spirit of inquiry. This step establishes the groundwork for EBP for CAUTI because it is a highly infectious disease. Clinicians must develop questions while formulating evidence supporting clinical practice (Shambare, 2020). This is confirmed to support various strategies in managing short-term urethral catheters, including good hand hygiene and applying high sterile equipment, and maintaining closed drainage systems. Other approaches supported include ensuring that the drainage bag is below the bladder level and taking standard precautions such as using PPE when manipulating the catheter.
Activities in the second step entail developing and asking clinical questions in a PICOT guideline. McNeill (2017) describes PICOT as the "Patient population, Intervention of interest, Comparison intervention of interest, Outcomes of interest, and the Time for achieving the outcomes.