CDC - Blogs - Safe Healthcare – Sharing Successes and Challenges of Preventing CLABSIs in Dialysis

Sharing Successes and Challenges of Preventing CLABSIs in Dialysis
Categories: CLABSI, Infection Control in Healthcare, hemodialysis

September 10th, 2010 8:04 am ET -


Healthcare Professionals
Author – Barbara Bond, RN
Senior Quality Improvement Advisor
Delmarva Foundation

Each year, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) cause substantial illness, hospitalization and, even, death in hemodialysis patients. From 1994 to 2007, rates of hospitalization for infection among this patient population have increased by nearly 38%. As infection rates have increased, so has our need to respond and implement measures that help reduce infections in hemodialysis. That is why we became a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) collaborative.

The CDC sponsors this collaborative to assist hemodialysis organizations in their efforts to reduce and prevent central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSIs). It is my job to help support those activities and to work toward answering those nagging questions that we in the healthcare community are often too scared to ask.

Although we came together as a small group of individuals with a wide range of experience and jobs, those of us in the collaborative bring our own unique perspectives to the table to help further our common goal of improving patient outcomes in the dialysis community.

One of the biggest challenges to success in this effort has been to create an environment where a group of strangers can feel comfortable enough to share not only what is working but also what may not be working well in their organization. We have provided a safe, open, and non-threatening community where everyone can ask the tough questions.

We are working to find those who may be ahead of the curve when it comes to quality of care for their patients so that they may join this group of motivated individuals and help influence infection prevention in the communities that they serve.

If you are one of those individuals please contact me at bondb@dfmc.org or for more information or to download a PDF of the dialysis prevention collaborative brochure and fact sheet, please visit: The Collaborative Approach to Prevention of Bloodstream Infections in Dialysis web page.

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CDC - Blogs - Safe Healthcare – Sharing Successes and Challenges of Preventing CLABSIs in Dialysis