Query for Foley Associated UTIs

sabullock

How does your program handle this issue? Any time you note a UTI that is not POA and patient has a foley do you query regarding the association to the catheter -- or do you look at colony counts, etc to determine if meets CDC guidelines for reportable infection and only query if it meets those guidelines?

Thanks
Shelia Bullock
UMMC

Unknown

If UTI is documented, treatment is rendered and pt has foley or supra pubic cath I query regarding the relationship.

Charlene

lspryszak

Best practice is to always query whenever there is an infection (or other complication) that may be associated with the presence of a device (urinary or other catheter, drain, prosthesis, whatever). Coding guidelines do not often correlate with quality reporting guidelines. ICD-9 codes, once entered onto the coding summary now become public information. You want to make sure that you are always accurately reporting the relationship between a condition and a device.

If we hesitate to query because it may negatively impact other quality reporting guidelines, then the data is faulted.

Example:

A facility wants to know their baseline complication rates for a particular problem. Your baseline data shows that you have a low "complication" rate, suggesting that you don't have a significant problem, so an improvement plan is not instituted.

Question: do you really have "great" complication rates or is it because the providers aren't being queried when devices are present or you're only using quality reporting guidelines instead of what should be done?

When analyzing and reporting data, garbage in, garbage out...