There have been heightened calls for better patient care, safe patient care, and reasonable healthcare costs in recent years. Even though there have been efforts to achieve such goals, various events still exist in health care that threatens patient safety and lead to poor patient care, hence a need to address them. One of such is healthcare-associated infection (HCAIs). Healthcare-associated infections have been shown to result in various adverse impacts such as longer hospital stays and health care spending. Healthcare-associated infection is connected to pathogens like viruses, bacteria, and fungi (da Silva et al., 2018). An infection can occur at any healthcare facility like; assisted living, orthopedic centers, urgent care, hospitals, and even dialysis centers. HCAIs are important causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States and are associated with a substantial increase in health care costs each year (Healthy People 2020, 2021).
In general, HCAIs are the leading cause of sickness and death, with critical medical, financial, and emotional repercussions to both the patient and the healthcare facility. One way of addressing the problem is through quality improvement and evidence-based practice projects. Central to quality improvement and evidence-based practice project initiatives is an analysis of published literature and research guidelines to get the best evidence that supports the effort. Therefore, the purpose of this assignment is to interpret two articles relevant to the topic of healthcare-associated infections.
Description of the Matrix Table Data
From the matrix table, it is evident that the two studies were both focused on ways of addressing healthcare-associated infections and preventing them, specifically, CAUTI. While Zurmehly (2018) article had education and incidences of CAUTI, the article by Bui et al. (2020) used total antimicrobial defined daily dose and chlorhexidine bathing. While both studies used quantitative design, the first article was a quasi-experimental design; the second article was a randomized controlled trial. Both studies had 95% levels of confidence. In addition, any result with a p-value bigger than 0.05 was considered non-significant. Both nurses and patients formed part of research subjects in the case of Zurmehly (2018) article. On the other hand, the research subjects in the other article were patients only. One of the instruments used is the Braden Scale. Its reliability ranges from 0.83 to 0.99. The research findings provide evidence to support the clinical problem. From the findings, healthcare-associated infections are still common in the healthcare setting, which highlights the need for better intervention. Implementation of nurse protocols that focus on reduction of the same is therefore key in reducing the rates of infection.
Conclusion
Healthcare-associated infection is one of the leading causes of death and high healthcare spending in the world today. Therefore, there is always a need to come up with better strategies to control the same. In particular, this write-up has focused on catheter-associated urinary tract infections which are also common in clinical settings. While various strategies have been applied in trying to address and control the same. The implementation of an educational nursing protocol was found to be effective in lowering the rates of CAUTI significantly. However, bathing using chlorhexidine was not such effective as was predicted. The question remains, can these protocols be placed as the standards of practice, especially the ones shown in research papers, to be effective?
References
Bui, L. N., Swan, J. T., Perez, K. K., Johnson, M. L., Chen, H., Colavecchia, A. C., … & Graviss, E. A. (2020). Impact of Chlorhexidine Bathing on Antimicrobial Utilization in Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Journal of Surgical Research, 250, 161-171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2019.12.049.
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