Healthcare associated infections are associated with indwelling devices. Yet, data regarding prevalence of indwelling devices in noncritically ill hospitalized patients remains scant.
Adult, noncritically ill patients on general care, telemetry, and surgical floors at our quaternary care hospital were surveyed on 2 separate days. Data regarding presence of indwelling vascular, urinary, and gastrointestinal devices, as well as nurse to patient ratio on each unit were collected.
There were 1,229 devices observed among the 857 patients surveyed across 2 days. Of the surveyed patients, 780 (91.0%) had at least 1 indwelling device. Among all devices, intravenous catheters were the most common (90.1%), followed by gastrointestinal devices (12.8%) and urinary catheters (10.2%). The most prevalent device was peripheral intravenous catheters. The median nurse to patient ratio was 3 patients to 1 nurse; no difference in nurse to patient ratio based on the number of devices present was observed.
Indwelling device use appears highly prevalent in general care settings and variation among devices is common. Healthcare associated infections prevention strategies targeting these devices are necessary.
American journal of infection control. 2020 Jul 01 [Epub ahead of print]
Stephanie Chen, Megan O'Malley, Vineet Chopra
The University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, MI., Division of Hospital Medicine. Department of Medicine, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, MI., The University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, MI; Division of Hospital Medicine. Department of Medicine, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, MI. Electronic address: .