Challenges and Opportunities
The major challenge is how to keep track of any inserted urinary catheter in a patient. It has been shown that most times physicians and nurses will forget about a urinary catheter, and this is one of the major causes of infections in patients. Therefore, there should be a strategy in place for monitoring any urinary catheter that has been inserted in a patient and ensuring that it is removed when it is no longer needed. Removal of unnecessary catheters ensures that HAIs associated with the catheter is prevented. Another challenge is the time it takes to recognize that a catheter is in place and the physician determines it is no longer needed and issues a removal order. This might take hours or days. According to (Meddings et al., 2014) any delay in removing a catheter increases the patient's risk of infections and catheter-associated complications.
Maintaining awareness of any urinary catheter that has been used is the best strategy for ensuring that the catheter is not forgotten. This will also alert the physician and nurses to check if the catheter is still necessary to ensure that it is removed in case it is no longer required. Constantly reminding nurses and physicians that a catheter is still in place will also ensure that they check to ensure that it is properly inserted and no infection has occurred. Catheter reminder interventions have been shown to be effective in reducing the rate of infections caused by urinary catheters (Meddings et al., 2014). Electronic reminders could also be implemented to replace the sticker method that is being used by most facilities. Electronic reminders will be hard to miss and the physician or nurse will be alerted to check on the status of the catheter. It has been shown that any intervention that facilitates the prompt removal of unnecessary catheters would have a strong impact in preventing HAIs.
References
Meddings, J., Rogers, M. A., Krein, S. L., Fakih, M. G., Olmsted, R. N., & Saint, S. (2014). Reducing unnecessary urinary catheter use and other strategies to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infection: an integrative review. BMJ Qual saf, 23(4), 277-289.
