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central line associated blood stream infections

why is this a priority for us?

  • Central lines are used every day in our hospital to provide antibiotics, IV fluids, and nutrition
  • When bacteria enters a central line and gets into the blood stream, a child can become very ill, requiring extra antibiotics, hospitalization, and additional monitoring.

who’s at greatest risk?

  • Any patient with a central line. This includes:
    • Many of our patients with cancer
    • Patients who require lengthy courses of IV antibiotics
    • Patients who require nutritional support through an IV

what are we doing to help reduce infections?

  • We follow set procedures for placing lines and daily care of lines to help keep lines free from infection
  • Procedures include things like:
    • Good hand hygiene
    • Daily bathing with medicated soap
    • Using sterile technique when placing and accessing the line
  • We investigate every infection with a small team to understand why we had an infection

what do we measure?

  • We measure every infection per 1000 line days

how are we continuing to improve?

  • Over the last year, we have had an increase in infections. These have been mostly due to a small group of patients.
  • We are trialing new products to better address this group’s needs
  • We implemented new training techniques to assure everyone is being trained exactly the same way.
    clabsi