Hospital Sees Success in Reducing Central Line Infections to zero
It’s always encouraging when you come across a hospital anywhere in the country that has achieved dramatic success in reducing infections. Just two years ago, Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles was battling with a centerline infection rate that was more than double the national average rate for such bloodstream infections. Today, that rate has dropped to zero, thanks to aggressive infection control strategies adopted at the hospital.
Approximately 250,000 people contract deadly central line infections every year. The risk for such infections is especially high in intensive care or surgical care units where healthcare personnel are required to act quickly, leaving ample room for unsanitized and unhygienic practices. The intravenous tubes allow nutrients and drugs to reach patients much faster than traditional IV lines. The flipside to that is that any deadly bacterial infection also spreads into the patient's bloodstream equally fast.
In 2008, Mount Sinai was battling high intravenous tube infection rates. Hospital established a series of measures to control these rates. A special infection control nurse was brought in to help implement these strategies.
• Sterile gowns, caps and other accessories were bundled into a single package to allow easy access to all gear.
• Special carts were introduced to allow nurses and doctors access to catheters and other supplies to set up an intravenous tube line, with minimum fuss.
• The hospital set into place a procedure in which doctors and nurses were required to take a “timeout” to go through a checklist before inserting catheters.
• Mount Sinai also made a switch from common alcohol-based disinfectants to a more effective chlorhexidine-based antiseptic, which has been shown to be much more effective in preventing infections.
The results were very encouraging. Within a few months and by the end of 2008, central line infections at the hospital had dropped to zero.
As Indiana medical malpractice lawyers, we hope more and more hospitals around the country adopt such practices to neutralize the chances of patients developing such dangerous infections.
