Stethoscope Disinfection Paper

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Central line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) in 2009 were amongst 23,000 infections in the inpatient population of US hospitals. (Sweet, Cumpston, Briggs, Craig, & Hamadani, 2012) These infections increase morbidity of patients, mortality, and increase cost. Those that are at risk are the population with central venous catheters. This infection is commonly due to improper hub care and consequently provides the direct introduction of the bacteria into the blood stream. A fairly new intervention to prevent this morbid infection is the implementation of alcohol impregnated protective caps, otherwise known as the brand name Curos caps in addition to others. The practice has gained popularity but as any new intervention, it takes time …show more content…

All around hospitals you see where signs are up that have step by step procedures, hand washing reminders, and the list goes on; although finding studied evidence that these visual aids work was difficult to find. For this review, an article was chosen that analyzed predictors of healthcare provider stethoscope disinfection and its impact on infection control in the pediatric population. An anonymous survey was sent out and a topic that was explored was barriers to disinfections. Most believed that stethoscopes had the ability to spread infections, but nevertheless, very little healthcare providers indicated that they disinfected their stethoscope after every use. (Muniz, Sethi, Zaghi, Ziniel, & Sandora, 2012) The odds of disinfecting stethoscopes after each use were greatly decreased for healthcare providers that indicated a lack of visual reminders was a barrier to their compliance. To further this theory that visual reminders would increase compliance, a separate study would need to be conducted. Going off of the data the survey indicated, most indicated that visual reminders help them and having them would increase their obedience to this vital infection control task; although, this concept was only stated by the healthcare members and not directly studied to be

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