SHN’s VAP/CLA-BSI collaborative showing favourable results
Collaborative members participate in sessions helping team members learn new skills
Tuesday March 9, 2010 -- Deron Hamel
Results from a 25-team collaboration between 13 organizations introduced by Safer Healthcare Now (SHN) in 2009 to curb ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and central line-associated/bloodstream infections (CLA-BSI) in hospitals is showing favourable results, according to a report published in SHN’s February 2010 newsletter.

As part of this initiative, a series of educational sessions were held in Toronto to provide members of the 25 teams with an opportunity to learn new skills to combat the incidence of VAP and CLA-BSI.

There were also regular webinars held through the collaborative so team members could network and share successes.

To date, results reported to SHN’s central measurement team from the collaborative indicate a declining rate in the number of reported incidents of VAP and CLA-BSI within the healthcare facilities participating in the collaborative.

Specific highlights of the report show that Windsor Regional Hospital went seven months without a VAP between March and September 2009 and had almost 100 per cent compliance to the VAP bundle, according to data published on the SHN website.

Grand River Hospital, located in Waterloo Region, saw an increase in its VAP bundle compliance surge from 40 to 80 per cent.

In Peterborough, the CLA-BSI team experienced just one infection in March, and saw its insertion bundle compliance spike from 40 to 90 per cent.

The SHN website reports some of the feedback received from team members involved in the collaborative.

“(We now have) much more structure in our goal of improvement, a significant increase in knowledge of available tools for improvement, an increased skill, ability (and) knowledge in developing our own tools for data collection,” says one member.

Another member characterized the collaborative as a “team-building experience.”

“(We) got to know colleagues in a different setting . . . to share ideas (and) continue to apply what we’ve learned.”

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