Question: Summarize the quality improvement initiative at Jasper Medical Center and justify why the initiatives are necessary to the center.
Current Process:
To assess the quality of our care, we monitor both processes (how we deliver your care) and outcomes (the results of your care). For instance, one CMS-endorsed process measure focuses on how well we equip heart failure patients to continue their own care once they've returned home. Considering this, we've focused on ensuring more thorough in-hospital education about the importance of consistently monitoring symptoms. Fielder Medical Center has access to a robust, real-time database that compares its quality outcomes with more than one hundred academic medical center peers.
Initiative: Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI)
Another indwelling catheter is often used to remove urine from the bladder when a patient undergoes surgery or cannot move quickly. These catheters may cause a urinary tract infection in the bladder or kidney if germs travel along the catheter. Preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infections is vital to help our patients avoid unpleasant symptoms, excessive antibiotic use, more severe complications such as sepsis, and extended hospital stays.
Building on the previous successes with other types of infections related to medical devices used in the hospital, we currently have a team of doctors, nurses, and other caregivers identifying and implementing best practices regarding prevention throughout the hospital. This team has collaborated with other hospitals to obtain as current information as possible regarding effective strategies to address this complication.
Improvements have been made to ensure that sterile technique is consistently adhered to in placing and maintaining the catheters. The team has focused on encouraging the use of alternatives to urinary catheters and educating doctors and nurses about the importance of removing the catheter as quickly as possible during the patient's stay in the hospital. These efforts are beginning to show success as the number of catheter-associated urinary tract infections at Jasper Medical Center has decreased.