Prevention strategies such as checklists, verbal or written reminders, sticker reminders on the patient’s chart or catheter drainage bag, or an electronic reminder are a few suggested implementations. Another consideration for implementation is a physician assigned stop order, prompting for the removal of the catheter after a certain time period.
Since the use of urinary catheter is often unnecessary, the CDC has provided guidelines for appropriate indications including: acute urinary retention or bladder outlet instruction, a measurement for urinary output in critically ill patients, perioperative use for selected procedures, open sacral or perineal wounds in incontinent patients, patients requiring prolonged immobilization, and improved comfort for end-of-life care. All the evidence-based prevention strategies discussed has offer significant opportunities for improving patient safety and achieving prevent goals to limit the risk of CAUTI (Knudson,