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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
* Due to treatment costs and lack of reimbursement, community hospitals are charged with implementing innovative strategies that will reduce the incidence of hospital-acquired catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI).
* A nurse-driven system for decreasing the number of hospital-acquired CAUTI is effective and useful for a community hospital.
* One nurse with accountability for implementing a simple evidencebased protocol can dramatically decrease the total incidence of hospital-acquired CAUTI.
* The basis for the success of this initiative relied heavily on the ease of using the eight-point Question the Foley criteria, the availability of the electronic ical interdisciplinary collaboration, and support from nursing and physician administration.
* With collaboration and support from nursing leadership, the goals for patient safety by reducing hospital-acquired CAUTI can become a reality in a short period of time.
CATHETER-ASSOCIATED urinary tract infections (CAUTI) continue to challenge community hospitals. Hospitalacquired urinary tract infections account for 40% of hospital-acquired infections, with 80% of those infections related to use of a urinary, or Foley, catheter (Gokula, Smolen, Gaspar, Hensley, Benninghoff, & Smith, 2012; Hanchett, 2012). Given the rising cost of treating CAUTI, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) identified hospital-acquired CAUTI as one of eight conditions for which hospitals would no longer receive reimbursement as of October 1, 2008 (Milstein, 2009). Community hospitals, therefore, are charged with implementing innovative strategies that will reduce the incidence of hospital-acquired CAUTI.
A variety of strategies have been explored in nursing and other scientific literature for decreasing the incidence of CAUTI. Practical suggestions, such as stickers on patients' medical records or computer-generated reminders, along with implementation of evidence-based guidelines for Foley catheter maintenance, have been offered as potential solutions (Bruminhent, Keegan, Lakhani, Roberts & Passalacqua, 2010; Gokula et al., 2012; Wilson et al., 2009). The majority of literature, however, has been focused on tertiary or academic medical centers and long-term care facilities
White Plains Hospital is a 301-bed non-academic community hospital in the suburbs of New York City that has implemented a nurse-driven process that reduced the incidence of CAUTI 50% within 1 year of implementation. The incidence of CAUTI continues to decline to date with the goal of eventually having zero hospitalacquired CAUTI events. Further, with the decline in the incidence of...