Multimodal Intervention Approach Reduces Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI) in a Rural Tertiary Care Center

Objective To compare the catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) standardized infection rate (SIR) before and after implementation of a multimodal intervention approach in a rural tertiary hospital.

Design Before–after analysis of a multimodal intervention to evaluate primary outcomes of the incidence of inpatient CAUTI, the SIR for CAUTI, and number of urinary catheter days.

Setting All inpatient departments of a rural 504-bed tertiary care facility in the Midwest.

Participants Patients admitted for in-patient care.

Interventions A multimodal intervention composed of: (a) physician and nurse education, (b) modification of progress note templates and daily provider reminders for the clinical necessity of catheters, (c) implementing established best practices for eliminating CAUTIs, (d) advocating for alternative toileting options, and (e) promoting aseptic techniques for insertion and removal of catheters. SIR, CAUTI, and the number of urinary catheter days were obtained before and after implementation of the multimodal intervention in 2015 and 2017, respectively.

Results After a one-year timeframe of intervention, CAUTI event rates decreased, and SIR for CAUTI was reduced by 60.2% (from 1.524 to 0.607) with p-value<0.05. Urinary catheter days were also reduced from 16,195 in 2015 to 13,348 in 2017 (17.6% reduction) with p-value <0.05.

Conclusions Incidence of CAUTIs were significantly reduced with a team effort involving infection control, physician and nursing education, modification of progress note and templates and daily provider reminders for the clinical necessity of catheters and appropriate usage of urinary catheter with corresponding reduction in urinary catheter days.