The paradoxical relationship between standardized infection ratio and standardized utilization ratio for catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) in contrast to central-line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), in addition to CAUTI definition challenges, incentivizes hospitals to focus their prevention efforts on urine culture stewardship rather than catheter avoidance and care.
This original article was published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
This observational study included surveillance data prospectively collected by infection preventionists from 43 hospitals in the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network (DICON) from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2018. Data from 2019 and 2020 were excluded due to partial reporting to National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) during this time, and challenges with obtaining accurate SURs for all hospitals for this period. Hospitals were stratified into large (>70,000 patient days), medium (30,000–70,000 patient days), and small hospitals (<30,000 patient days) based on DICON’s benchmarking for community hospitals.