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INTRODUCTION: According to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) rates, determination of the number of urinary catheter days must occur by calculating the number of catheters in place "for each day of the month, at the same time of day" but does not define at what time of day this occurs. The purpose of this review was to determine if a data collection time of 11 am would yield a greater collection of urinary catheter days than that done at midnight. METHODS: During a 20-month period, the number of urinary catheter days was calculated using once-a-day electronic measurements to identify a urinary catheter presence. We used data collected at 11 am and collected at midnight (our historic default) in comparing the calculated urinary catheter days and resultant CAUTI rates. RESULTS: There were 7,548 patients who had a urinary tract catheter. The number of urinary catheter days captured using the 11 am collection time was 15,425, and using the midnight collection time was 10,234, resulting in a 50.7% increase. The CAUTI rate per 1,000 urinary catheter days calculated using the 11 am collection method was 0.58, and using the midnight collection method was 0.88, a reduced CAUTI rate of 33.6%. CONCLUSION: The data collection time can significantly impact the calculation of urinary catheter days and on calculated CAUTI rates. Variations in how healthcare systems define their denominator per current National Healthcare Safety Network policy may result in significant differences in reported rates.
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Health care-onset health care facility-associated Clostridium difficile infection (HO-CDI) is overdiagnosed for several reasons, including the high prevalence of C. difficile colonization and the inability of hospitals to limit testing to patients with clinically significant diarrhea. We conducted a quasiexperimental study from 22 June 2015 to 30 June 2016 on consecutive inpatients with C. difficile test orders at an academic hospital. Real-time electronic patient data tracking was used by the laboratory to enforce testing criteria (defined as the presence of diarrhea [≥3 unformed stools in 24 h] and absence of laxative intake in the prior 48 h). Outcome measures included C. difficile test utilization, HO-CDI incidence, oral vancomycin utilization, and clinical complications. During the intervention, 7.1% (164) and 9.1% (211) of 2,321 C. difficile test orders were canceled due to absence of diarrhea and receipt of laxative therapy, respectively. C. difficile test utilization decreased upon implementation from an average of 208.8 tests to 143.0 tests per 10,000 patient-days (P < 0.001). HO-CDI incidence rate decreased from an average of 13.0 cases to 9.7 cases per 10,000 patient-days (P = 0.008). Oral vancomycin days of therapy decreased from an average of 13.8 days to 9.4 days per 1,000 patient-days (P = 0.009). Clinical complication rates were not significantly different in patients with 375 canceled orders compared with 869 episodes with diarrhea but negative C. difficile results. Real-time electronic clinical data tracking is an effective tool for verification of C. difficile clinical testing criteria and safe reduction of inflated HO-CDI rates.
