The Reduction of Catheter-Related Blood Stream Infections through the Implementation of an Interdisciplinary Healthcare Team

In December 2012, a multidisciplinary task force was implemented to address the elevated number of central line associated boodstream infections (CLABSIs) at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center from January 2012 to December 2012. Sixty-eight CLABSIs were documented within the adult inpatient population, resulting in a rate of 14.7 CLABSIs/1,000 central line days in the adult inpatient population. This was well above the national average of 1.87 infections per 1,000 central line days. Most of these infections were noted to be within the critical care units where the rate was at 2.86 CLABSIs/1,000 central line days. However, in 2013, the annual rate was decreased to 0.709 CLABSIs/1000 line days with similar trends observed across the critical care units. Analysis of CLASBI data indicates that the implementation of a multidisciplinary task force dedicated to appropriate central line insertion, maintenance, and the removal of unnecessary central venous catheters can have an impact on reducing rates of CLASBIs throughout the adult inpatient population, including those within critical care units.