Nursing Care Matters and Quality Development

One of the pillars of health-care delivery is quality improvement. Medical practitioners have the potential to always enhance their service when treating patients because their occupation involves critical attention to detail owing to the care for patients who, in most circumstances, are unable to do it for themselves. Quality improvement is carried out in this case to solve some of the flaws in the healthcare system and to improve professionalism in their work (Gralton, Smollen, Curtis, & others, 2014). The purpose of this essay is to identify one of these nursing care issues that are encountered in the healthcare centers and focus on the quality improvement that can be applied regarding the matter. As for this case, the nursing care issue identified is Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTIs). In line to this, an explanation as to the choice of topic will be offered followed by a follow up on the desired outcome based on the impact quality improvement will have to this issue.

Definition of Nursing Issue

According to recently published medical journals, CAUTIs, is among the leading health care related infection in the recent years in the United States(Gould, Umscheid, Agarwal, Kuntz, & Pegues, 2010). CAUTIs is mentioned due to its common occurrence and the number of patients reporting the contagion in most of the hospitals and clinics across the country. However, despite the fact that its extensive treatment is carried out in many health care centers in the country, the baffling issue is the fact that there is very little information concerning the prevention of CAUTIs or any epidemiology of pediatric(Gralton et al., 2014). In the hospitals and clinics, infections are one of the regular reporting’s that come across the medical practitioner’s health care related issues to attend to in their daily rosters. In the United States, CAUTIs accounts for a high percentage of reported infections among adults(Huang et al., 2004).

One of the reasons for my choice of this nursing care issue is due to the recently published medical statistics that show 40% of the reported infections in the US were urinary tract related with a majority of this cases identified as CAUTIs related(Gould et al., 2010). Based on these findings, it is evident; this nursing care issue accounts for close to half the health care-associated infections reported in the hospitals and clinics across the country. The people reporting to medical centers with CAUTIs are identified to suffer from the danger of sequelae which includes meningitis, pyelonephritis and, bacteremia. CAUTIs has also been identified to have certain adverse outcomes among the patients brought in for treatment(Gralton et al., 2014). It ranges from prolonged periods of hospitalization which leads to expensive hospital bills and loss of time due to the time spent in the hospital wards and, the extreme which is the death of a CAUTIs patient. Every year, more than 13,000 die due to CAUTIs in the US, and the cost associated with the treatment of this infection is about 450 million dollars. This significant impact of CAUTIs propels the need to focus on this nursing care issue and the need for directing quality care improvement towards its containment(Hooton et al., 2010).

Despite recorded high infection rates of CAUTIs, there is scant information regarding the strategies that can be used in its prevention among adults with, is much less known in regards to its epidemiology and, the consequent prevention of the infection in children. CAUTIs among children raises the need to focus on this nursing care issue and the emphasis on quality care improvement based on the matter(Gould et al., 2010). “A survey carried out by the Pediatric Prevention Network (PPN) on the subject of point prevalence came with the findings which suggest the multicenter degree of pediatric CAUTI in Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs) was at 13.3 contagions per 1000 urinary catheter-days”(Gould et al., 2010). ”A recent report published by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s, CDC’s, alongside the National Healthcare Safety Network, NHSN. It suggested the combined ratio of the number of CAUTI infections among adults was similar to that identified for the PICUs in the year 2011”(Gralton et al., 2014). This finding emphasizes the need to focus on CAUTIs as a nursing care issue and the quality improvement towards it will ensure a reduction in the infections and treatment(Huang et al., 2004).

Desired Outcomes

As identified above, CAUTIs is one of the leading urinary tract related urinary tract infection in the healthcare system in the United States. In line with this fact, quality care improvement is essential in tackling this nursing care issue for the better health of the patients(Gralton et al., 2014). With proper quality care improvement directed towards CAUTIs through keen attention on device-associated infections, there will be a significant reduction in the infection rates associated with CAUTIS(Hooton et al., 2010). It is evident as in the case of the pediatric facilities that took the initiative of quality improvement through this method, and they were able to record a significant drop in the number of CAUTIs infections among PICUs.

Quality improvement in tackling CAUTIs is identified to have the ability to curb the runaway rise in the number of urinary tract infections that lead to the extremes(Gralton et al., 2014). In this case, the severity is identified to be CAUTIs. Following the application of the CAUTI prevention bundle, the rate at which CAUTI infections are reported decreases by a huge margin of 50%, this translates to a drop from 5.41 per 1000 to 2.49 per 1000 catheter days(Gralton et al., 2014). Before the introduction of the prevention bundle as a quality care improvement strategy, children in pediatric care suffering from urinary tract infections were at a higher risk of getting CAUTIs. However, the prevention bundle has shown the ability to counter the risk to a manageable number.

Conclusion

Quality care improvement in the health care department is crucial in the efforts of improving the well-being of patients. This paper has identified and emphasized one of the mitigating nursing care issue, CAUTIs (Gould et al., 2010). In support of this choice of topic, the article has provided statistics based on publications that show the spread of CAUTIs and the number of infections reported in health organization in the US. In support of this choice of topic, the paper has identified the spectrum of CAUTIs infections and recognized the fact that this urinary tract infection affects both adults and children without the existence of any prevention mechanism(Hooton et al., 2010). It raises the need for improved quality care to curb its spread due to the severity of it course which has been identified as high-cost treatment and death of patients. Finally, the desired outcomes have been mentioned in detail as in the case of the prevention bundle which will come in handy in the handling of the nursing care issue identified(Gould et al., 2010).

Reference

Gould, C. V., Umscheid, C. A., Agarwal, R. K., Kuntz, G., & Pegues, D. A. (2010). Guideline for prevention of catheter-associated urinary tract infections 2009. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 31(4), 319–326.

Gralton, J., Smollen, P., Curtis, P., & others. (2014). Reducing catheter associated urinary tract infections. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Journal, 22(3), 36.

Hooton, T. M., Bradley, S. F., Cardenas, D. D., Colgan, R., Geerlings, S. E., Rice, J. C., … others. (2010). Diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of catheter-associated urinary tract infection in adults: 2009 International Clinical Practice Guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 50(5), 625–663.

Huang, W.-C., Wann, S.-R., Lin, S.-L., Kunin, C. M., Kung, M.-H., Lin, C.-H., … others. (2004). Catheter-associated urinary tract infections in intensive care units can be reduced by prompting physicians to remove unnecessary catheters. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 25(11), 974–978.