Urinary tract infections are the most common infection in nursing homes, but UTI prevention tactics are not standardized across facilities, a survey of nearly 1,000 U.S. nursing homes found.
Researchers from the Center for Health Policy at Columbia University School of Nursing in New York surveyed 955 nursing homes from across the U.S. in 2014. The responses were linked to infection data from CMS to identify policies that led to lower UTI rates, and they presented their findings at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology annual conference.
They found 5.4 percent (more than 4,700 nursing home residents) have a UTI every month. And, if a resident has a catheter, they were four times more likely to contract a UTI. However, the majority of UTIs were not associated with catheter use.
"What was particularly interesting about this study was that there were more UTIs that were not associated with catheterization than those that were," said Carolyn Herzig, PhD, project director at Columbia University School of Nursing. "This means that a larger focus should be placed on identifying practices to prevent UTIs regardless of catheter placement.
The survey and study also uncovered three UTI prevention policies that were associated with lower infection rates:
- Using a portable bladder ultrasound scanner to determine if all urine was being voided (only 22 percent of nursing homes had this policy in place)
- Cleaning the urine bag attached to the resident's leg (only 44 percent of nursing homes had this policy in place)
- Having an infection preventionist on staff who took a national course from APIC (only 9 percent of nursing homes had this policy in place)