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Ms. John is Staff Nurse, Ms. Thomas is Staff Nurse, and Ms. Iacono is Nurse Manager, Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit, Ms. Scanlon is Chief Nursing Officer, and Dr. Woolforde is Senior Administrative Director, Nursing Education, Research and Professional Development, North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, New York. At the time of this work, Ms. Cardona and Ms. Santarina were staff nurses at North Shore University Hospital.
This project was supported by a grant from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, Clinical Scene Investigator Academy.
The authors have disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
The Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit (NSCU) at North Shore University Hospital is a 16-bed unit established in 2007. Similar to many other NSCUs around the country, this NSCU was struggling to lower catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), despite following evidence-based practices. In fact, the NSCU had never experienced more than 30 consecutive CAUTI-free days since 2011, until the inception of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses Clinical Scene Investigator Academy (AACN CSI Academy (tm) ; http://www.aacn.org/wd/csi/content/csi-landing.pcms?menu=csi ) initiative. In 2013, the NSCU was selected to participate in a 16-month grant program through the AACN. The CSI Academy is designed to empower bedside nurses to become leaders and change agents in their clinical practice environment. The CSI Academy, through education and mentoring, helps nurses to develop enhanced communication, project management, data collection, and presentation skills. By the conclusion of the program, the NSCU team was able to successfully reduce CAUTI rates by 26%, reduce indwelling urinary catheter (IUC) days by 31%, and experienced periods of up to 8 months without a single incident of CAUTI.
Background
It is estimated that 12% to 16% of hospitalized patients may receive short-term IUCs ( Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, 2014 ). The daily risk of the acquisition of urinary infection varies from 3% to 7% when an IUC remains in place ( Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, 2014 ). Because CAUTIs are common, costly, and believed to be "reasonably preventable events" ( Wald & Kramer, 2007 , p. 2783), they were identified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services...