Note: Responses were lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: What was your proudest accomplishment from 2023 and why?
Dr. Lauralyn Brown: Coming out of the pandemic brought new challenges to our hospital system especially in the area surrounding hospital acquired infections. Our hospital campus struggled with on-boarding new staff, releasing travel staff and we unfortunately were experiencing higher than usual central line associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) standardized infection ratio rates. Despite performing root cause analysis following each CLABSI, we still continued to experience infections related to both insertion processes: through the use of femoral lines and central line maintenance issues.
My team and I performed a density analysis of the CLABSIs we suffered and learned some interesting facts including inconsistent IV line labeling, inconsistent Curos cap application, inconsistent scrub the hub protocol, gaps in escalation for line removal and use of femoral lines, and gaps in cross-check/peer check during handoffs in care. Through the use of this information, my team and I incorporated a safety stand-down initiative for CLABSIs.
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