Research shows how inappropriate IV use can be reduced by more than a third

Research led by Amsterdam UMC over more than five years among 1,100 patients demonstrated a strategy to reduce inappropriate IV use by a third, an effect that lasted over the five-year period. This should also lead to a reduction in associated infections that affect one in ten patients. These results were published in eClinical Medicine.

“Infections caused by both IVs and catheters occur in more than 10% of patients and studies show that up to a quarter of these are unnecessary. This simply means that patients are at unnecessarily high risk of infection. This can delay or even delay the infection. hinder their recovery,” says Suzanne Geerlings, professor of internal medicine at Amsterdam UMC.

To combat this, the research team published a strategy in 2017 The Lancet Infectious Diseases. This strategy resulted in a 37% reduction in the number of unnecessary or inappropriate catheters used.

“When we talk about improper use, it usually concerns catheters that are placed for too long or, in the case of urinary catheters, when there is insufficient support for the patient,” Geerlings adds.

Of the 1,113 patients included in the study, 962 received an IV catheter, which is typically used for fluid administration, while the remaining 151 received a urinary catheter and the remaining 962 received an IV catheter.

“What’s really interesting is that no study has ever looked at how sustainable these recommendations are, and this is true for many new strategies in the healthcare sector. In this case we clearly see that the effects have persisted over the past five years. ,” says Geerlings.

To understand why their strategy continued to work, the research team conducted interviews with 18 healthcare professionals across the Netherlands. These interviews revealed that the strategy had permanently changed workflow in four of the five hospitals included in the study.

“By talking to people on the ground, we learned what worked and, perhaps more importantly, what didn’t,” says Tessa van Horrik, researcher at Amsterdam UMC and first author of the study.

“The main barriers to maintaining the strategy have been a combination of other priorities, shortages of time, staff or both, and it is understandable that in some cases there was simply no one to lead implementation over the period of five years. shows us that the strategy can work, as long as the resources are there,” Van Horrik adds.

Although the study also showed that these remedies do not have to be permanent. It was shown that a temporary investment, in time or leadership, was sufficient to reduce the unnecessary or inappropriate use of IVs and catheters.