To examine hospital-reported approaches to preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) across US acute care hospitals.
Approach:
Survey Methodology: National surveys of US acute care hospitals were administered at 4-year intervals since 2005, focusing on CAUTI prevention strategies.
Comparison of Settings: The study compared CAUTI prevention practices between VA hospitals and nonfederal hospitals, considering structural differences.
Data Collection: Infection preventionists were surveyed about the frequency of CAUTI-prevention practices using a 5-point Likert scale.
Key Findings:
CAUTI remains a frequent and costly health care-associated infection.
Multimodal interventions can lower CAUTI rates by at least 25%.
CAUTI prevention practices are supported by limited strong evidence, mostly classified as low to moderate.
Limitations:
The evidence supporting many CAUTI prevention practices is limited.
Differences in hospital structures may affect the generalizability of the findings.
Standardized preprocessing, multicenter datasets, external validation, and interpretable models may matter more than further gains in classification accuracy
