Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infection

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 metric called the "rolling average," which is calculated by adding the number of infections over the previous 12 months and dividing by 12. Each point on the graph represents the average of the 12 months preceding it. In other words, for June 2016, we add all the infections from July 2015 through June 2016 and divide by 12. This is the data point that's represented on the graph for June.

• 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.