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"Simple reminder" would reduce catheter infections
LTC Liability Monitor, August 4, 2005
If hospitals and SNFs used a "simple reminder" system, said a recent study, millions of residents could be spared the extended use of urine-collecting catheters, and also the potential for infection if those catheters are left in too long, reported Scripps Howard News Service. According to research published in the August issue of the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, about 25% of people hospitalized or placed in SNFs at any given time have urinary catheters, and a "substantial" number of those catheters are left in place longer than needed.
The study, conducted over 16 months at University Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI, employed "sign here" reminder stickers on medical charts in several wards that physicians had to initial each day after a catheter had been in place for 48 hours. The percentage of resident days spent using a catheter decreased more than 25%. The CDC estimates that about one million people in U.S. hospitals and nursing homes contract catheter-related infections every year.
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