Download our case study: North Country Healthcare Reduces CAUTI Rates to Zero With Quality Initiatives and MEDITECH Expanse 

About
Nestled in the northernmost region of New Hampshire, North Country Healthcare is an alliance of three Critical Access Hospitals and a home health and hospice agency. Formed in 2015, the alliance serves a population of 30,000, ensuring these communities have access to surgical care and medical services.
 
Challenge
In October 2023, nurses at North Country Healthcare sought a more standardized approach to documenting the removal of indwelling catheters and central lines. They wanted to confirm these lines were removed promptly to mitigate the risk of infection. The amount of time needed to create reports was also an obstacle to improving catheter management. Nurses were spending approximately 50 hours per month manually tracking and extracting line and drain data from charts for National Health Safety Network reporting. 

Execution
NCH implemented a “Lines and Drains” project to improve tracking of indwelling urinary catheters, central lines, and peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) lines at its three hospitals. Leveraging MEDITECH’s inherent flexibility, NCH’s IT team modified screens according to the clinicians’ needs. Improving the clinical documentation process and honing EHR screens involved up to 30 NCH staff members testing and giving their feedback. In addition, the health system used Expanse for reporting and data visualization. 

Results
The “Lines and Drains” project was an overwhelming success, achieving 100% compliance in documentation across all NCH locations, up from an initial 20%. In addition, the organization has had zero instances of CAUTI for over eight months since the initiative began. Finally, the health system was able to reduce the amount of time required to generate reports from 50 hours to less than four hours.

Quote
“Having data and reports easily accessible is the key to moving the needle on any metric — including seeing a decline in CAUTI rates. It’s been a game changer for us.”

Tiffany Haynes, MSN, RN
Chief Nursing Officer
North Country Healthcare