Gerontology Nurse Practitioner: A Case Study

As a future adult/gerontology nurse practitioner (AGNP), my role will be focusing on helping patients to manage chronic illnesses, illness prevention, and health promotion. In addition, The AGNP collaborate with other health care providers such as physicians and specialist to better manage and treat patient illness. The problem I am really interested in researching is catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) in hospitalized patients. Working as a registered nurse in a medical/surgical unit I have been exposed to different patients with indwelling Foley catheters and other requiring placement of the Foley catheter for various reasons. However, research has found that many patients tend to be at risk of unnecessary catheterization and are also at a greater risk of both infectious and non-infectious complications from the procedure (Carter, Reitmeier, & Goodloe, 2014). Therefore, providers need to be part of the plan to reduce unnecessary catheterization by assessing patient frequently to determine if they still requires the Foley catheter. …show more content…
If the indwelling Foley catheter has to be used, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in collaboration with other organizations, developed guidelines for the prevention of CAUTIs. The guidelines focused mainly on the prevention and they address; appropriate use of indwelling urinary catheter, utilization of proper techniques for indwelling catheter insertion, and utilization of proper techniques for indwelling catheter maintenance (CDC, 2015).

PICOT Question: For patients with indwelling urinary catheters, does implementing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prevention guidelines reduce the risk of future catheter-associated urinary tract infections CAUTIs compared to not using the CDC guidelines in hospitalized