Date of Conferral
2018
Degree
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
School
Health Services
Advisor
Barbara Niedz
Abstract
The challenge of combating Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) is a major problem within many health care organizations as CDI adds to the cost of care and is an uncomfortable and sometimes fatal complication of hospitalization for the patient. The practice-focused question for this doctoral project was targeted at patients in hospital settings on a medical surgical floor and asked if clostridium difficile preventive bundles reduce the incidence of CDI compared with nonstandardized preventative methods. Using the plan-do-study-act framework, the purpose of this DNP project was to use a clostridium difficile bundle approach to study the effects of clostridium difficile incidence (CDI) decrease on a medical-surgical unit with high CDI incidences. Standardized environmental cleaning practices resulted in improvement of the patient environment. High-touch cleaning improved from 43.7% to 83.3%. Time between CDI events lengthened from 19.9 days to 30.2, environmental cleaning with the use of Dazo auditing improved from 33.4% to 81.6%, isolation practices improved from 62.7% to 90%, and with the implementation of the nurse-driven CD testing protocol, unnecessary testing improved. Results showed that the CDI incidence on an acute care medical surgical unit was reduced through the use of a clostridium difficile preventive bundle in this DNP project. Reducing the incidence of CDI is a significant contribution to social change as this unwanted complication of hospitalization causes discomfort and pain and adds unnecessary cost to health care.
Recommended Citation
Feliciano, Lisa, "Clostridium difficile Infection (CDI): Use of Preventive Bundle to Decrease CDI Incidences" (2018). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 5188.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/5188
