At left: Marguerite Ganthier, Gilmara Alves and Marines Matos, patient care associates and observers; At right: Rosemond Polynice, patient care associate and observer, with Lauren Wilkinson, BSN, RN.

When CLABSI rates in intensive care units increased at the end of 2018, the CLABSI Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by Maria Bentain-Melanson, DNP, RN, nursing director of Shapiro 6 and 7, developed a plan to eliminate these infections, including:

• Identifying inconsistent use of the central line insertion checklist as an area for improvement and conducting a best-practice literature review.
• Developing a process to ensure a dedicated, trained observer (a patient care associate) was available for every central line insertion to ensure checklist compliance.
• Creating a checklist tool for observers to complete and for the task force to review to determine additional opportunities for improvement.

Bentain-Melanson worked with Allison Webster, DNP, RN, nursing director of the Float Pool, and Professional Development Managers Carol Daddio Pierce, MSN, RN, CCRN, and Karen Morth, MSN, RN, CCRN-CSC, to develop and implement observer training sessions in the Neil and Elise Wallace STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation.

As a result of these efforts, the CLABSI rate per 1,000 central line days in the ICUs decreased from 1.66 (October – December 2018) to 0.82 (July – September 2019); and from 1.42 (October – December 2019) to 0.93 (January – March 2020).

Why it’s Magnet: Magnet designation requires one example of an improved patient outcome associated with a nurse director’s membership in an organization-level decision-making group as part of the Transformational Leadership component (TL5EO). It’s who we are.