Toolkit To Reduce CAUTI and Other HAIs in Long-Term Care Facilities

The Toolkit To Reduce CAUTI and other HAIs in Long-Term Care Facilities helps long-term care (LTC) facilities reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) and improve practices to prevent HAIs. Based on principles and methods from the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP), the toolkit provides resources to enhance leadership and staff engagement, teamwork, and safety culture, in order to facilitate reliable use of evidence-based practices. The toolkit includes instructional materials and resources in infection prevention best practices (e.g., foundational infection prevention strategies, CAUTI prevention, antibiotic stewardship), resident and family engagement, quality improvement, and sustainability to guide your facility through implementing an improvement project to reduce HAIs. The toolkit's resources were used by LTC facilities that participated in the AHRQ Safety Program for Long-Term Care: HAIs/CAUTI, which successfully reduced CAUTI rates.

How To Use This Toolkit

The toolkit is organized into three main sections that your facility can use to implement an improvement project to reduce CAUTI and other HAIs. Each section contains guides, tools, slide sets, and videos to support implementation. All materials are publicly available and downloadable online. Many can be modified to meet local facility needs and criteria.

Toolkit Sections

Each section contains customizable resources that your facility can use to implement an improvement project to reduce CAUTI and other HAIs.

About the Toolkit Development

The toolkit was developed during a 3-year project, the AHRQ Safety Program for Long-Term Care: HAIs/CAUTI, which involved a national quality improvement collaborative designed to reduce CAUTIs and enhance patient safety culture and practices. The project brought together subject matters experts from partner organizations and approximately 500 participating long-term care facilities across the country.

Page last reviewed March 2017
Page originally created July 2014

Internet Citation: Toolkit To Reduce CAUTI and Other HAIs in Long-Term Care Facilities. Content last reviewed March 2017. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/quality-patient-safety/quality-resources/tools/cauti-ltc/index.html