Catheters Give Life but Sometimes Take It

Case Studies

In 2001 through 2005, the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative invited the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to ICUs in southwestern Pennsylvania to provide technical assistance for a hospital-based intervention to prevent central line-associated infections. During the intervention, infection rates among ICU patients declined 68 percent, from 4.31 to 1.36 per 1,000 central line days.³ The results suggest that a coordinated, multi-institutional infection-control initiative is a worthwhile approach, according to authors of, “Reduction in central line-associated bloodstream infections among patients in intensive care units.”

The intervention included 32 hospitals from 10 counties.

The median size of the hospitals involved was 215 beds. Among the participating hospitals, 66 ICUs contributed data. Forty eight percent were medical/surgical, 11 percent cardiothoracic, 14 percent coronary, 9 percent surgical, 6 percent neurosurgical, 5 percent trauma, 3 percent medical, 3 percent burn, and 3 percent pediatric.³

The promoted prevention practices were hardly a space-age creation; they have been included in the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee recommendations since 1996.³ Sometimes, however, older, more simple techniques are the best. “The results described in this report suggest that adhering to these evidence-based preventive practices can prevent BSIs,” the report authors write. “Nonetheless, previous reports suggest that adherence to these practices remains low.”