Device Prevents Death
San Diego - StatLock, a simple medical device costing less than $6, could have prevented nearly 600 deaths documented in a new landmark study of Pennsylvania hospitals.
The report, by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, an independent state agency, said catheter-associated urinary tract infections and catheter-related bloodstream infections accounted for most of the 1,510 unnecessary deaths from hospital-acquired infections reported in 2004 by the states' hospitals.
In addition to these largely preventable deaths, avoidable infections accounted for $2 billion in hospital costs in Pennsylvania in 2004, the report said.
The StatLock catheter securement device has been shown in multiple peer-reviewed published clinical studies to reduce potentially deadly catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) and catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSIs).
StatLock replaces outmoded suture and tape securement of catheters, and greatly reduces the danger of deadly infections from the use of suture or tape to hold urinary tract and central venous catheters in place.
The report's findings prompted emotional comments from a leading developer of infection-control measures. "How many more patients have to die before hospitals and clinicians drop their archaic, discredited reliance on tape and suture for catheter securement?" said Steve Bierman, M.D., StatLock's inventor and chief medical officer for Venetec International. "I'm disheartened by this unnecessary death toll in America's hospitals, even in Pennsylvania which has some of the world's finest healthcare facilities. The new study confirms what we have been saying for years: Using tape and suture to secure urinary and central-line catheters places patients at serious risk. There is no justification for the failure to recognize tape-free and suture-free securement as the best, simplest, lowest-cost solution to a high-cost problem that kills patients and wastes millions of dollars."
In addition, Dr. Bierman mentioned other infection-control measures such as maximal barrier protection, 2% chlorhexidine, and antimicrobial catheter coatings, as additional proven technologies for reducing catheter-related infections.
Pennsylvania is the first of a growing number of states requiring hospitals to report infections contracted by patients under their care. Five states have similar laws and more than a dozen are considering them. Consumers Union has launched a nationwide campaign to require disclosure of infection rates. This legal trend is expected to spur hospitals to look for better, low-cost measures to reduce hospital-acquired infections such as catheter-associated UTIs and CRBSIs.
Applying the new Pennsylvania data to the U.S. as a whole, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as estimating that 125 Americans a day die from hospital-acquired infections. Those infections are associated with $50 billion in related hospital charges per year.
"Most of these deaths from catheter-associated UTIs and bloodstream infections are preventable at very little expense," said Dr. Bierman. "Multiple clinical studies demonstrate that abandoning outmoded techniques used to secure catheters -- and instead adopting evidence-based securement methods -- can go a long way toward ending the silent plague of hospital-acquired infections."
Among those studies, Dr. Bierman pointed to a recent multi-center study overseen by Rabih Darouiche, M.D., at the Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Darouiche documented a "clinically very relevant" 45% reduction in catheter-associated UTIs when StatLock was used instead of other methods to secure Foley (urinary) catheters. He presented his data at the 2005 annual meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.
Applying those findings to the infection and death rates in the Pennsylvania study, use of a $3 StatLock Foley device could have prevented the deaths of 190 patients who died last year in Pennsylvania hospitals from catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
A separate study at St. Luke's Hospital and Health Network, of Allentown, Pa., found that the StatLock Foley device, along with better hand-washing protocols, reduced catheter-associated UTIs by 70%. That data was presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
On the related issue of reducing deadly central-line infections, use of a $5.95 StatLock device for central-line catheters could have saved the lives of 392 patients who died in Pennsylvania hospitals last year due to preventable central-line infections, Dr. Bierman said. He bases that conclusion on a Pennsylvania hospital study published in January 2002 in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, and on related studies published in 2000 by the National Patient Safety Foundation.
"It's very unfortunate that many clinicians have not yet changed practice based on the prospective, randomized studies we performed," said Gregory Schears, M.D., an expert in catheter securement who is based in Rochester, Minn. Dr. Schears, who was the lead author of the Pennsylvania study that documented StatLock's role in reducing potentially deadly catheter-related bloodstream infections, also commented, "I hope the findings of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council will force clinicians to look carefully at their practices and adopt strategies to reduce infection, including better catheter securement."
StatLock is used in more than 2,000 healthcare facilities worldwide, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic. Custom StatLock designs are available for peripheral IVs, central venous, PICC, Foley and arterial catheters, as well as virtually all other medical catheters and tubes.
SOURCE: Venetec International