A urinary catheter is a small tube inserted through the urethra into the bladder to allow for drainage of urine. Bacteria can enter the bladder through these catheters resulting in urinary tract infections.
Urinary tract infections can cause a child to become very ill, can damage the kidneys, delay healing, and increase time spent in the hospital.
We follow a national definition for how to define when a CAUTI occurs. These infections are tracked and reported to a national registry. We follow these metrics every month and create graphs and charts to measure how we are improving over time so we can compare ourselves to other hospitals.
We are part of a national collaborative called the Children’s Hospital Solutions for Patient Safety (CHSPS) in which hospitals share ideas and data and work together to decrease these infections nationwide. We have established standardized processes for the insertion and care of urinary catheters using practices that have been shown to reduce infections. We use checklists to ensure that the processes are followed. We regularly train our staff and measure how well we perform these processes. We investigate each infection in an attempt to find opportunities for improvement.
