The “Be Line Wise” Campaign saves lives
With the move to the Glen site fast approaching, the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) is busy harmonizing practices across the network. For the past five years, the MUHC Prevention and Infection Control service’s priority has been to reduce the risk of infection related to central catheters. The MUHC Transition Support Office has assisted in implementing best practices.
“Each infection has a mortality rate of 15 to 20 per cent and costs over $30,000 to treat,” explains Dr. Charles Frenette, MUHC medical director of Infection Prevention.
These facts are exactly why the “Be Line Wise” awareness campaign, which involves reminding everyone to use the best central venous catheter insertion (i.e. catheters inserted into a vein that pumps blood back to the heart) and maintenance practices and rewarding performance improvement on care units, was launched. Included in the number of measures adopted are the following:
- Hand washing prior to each catheter insertion and manipulation
- Using aseptic technique when inserting and maintaining a catheter
- Scrubbing the injection cap for 15 seconds before each access
Since the launch of the initiative, there has been a 40 per cent decrease in infections. “The challenge now is to continue to reduce the rate of infection in our patients,” explains Sandra Dial, director of Intensive Care at the Montreal Chest Institute (MCI). According to Dr. Dial, “the campaign’s success is due to the fact that we are educating the nursing staff to be ‘line wise.’”
Eliza Ford, assistant head nurse at the Medical Unit on the 15th floor of the Montreal General Hospital (MGH), shares the same vision of success. “Once nurses are trained, they are happy to use this knowledge in practice to better protect patients.”
“Implementing this program in the largest care unit at the MGH was definitely a challenge,” says Ford. “We were only able to do it thanks to everyone’s cooperation and involvement. Team work is the reason this campaign has had such a positive impact.”
The “Be Line Wise” campaign, including the related promotional tools, posters and tables were developed thanks to the financial contribution of our sponsors.