He pokenga pū ā-iaia
The infection prevention and control team at Te Tāhū Hauora is working on a quality improvement initiative to reduce Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia associated with a peripheral intravenous catheter (PIVC).
The infection prevention and control team at Te Tāhū Hauora is working on a quality improvement initiative to reduce Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia associated with a peripheral intravenous catheter (PIVC).
PIVCs are the most commonly used invasive medical device in health care. They are mainly used for therapeutic purposes such as giving patients medicines, fluids and blood products.
At any time, over half of all patients in Aotearoa New Zealand hospitals will have a PIVC. However, not all PIVCs inserted are used, which places patients at unnecessary risk of infection associated with the device.
Infections associated with a PIVC can be localised or lead to a bloodstream infection, usually caused by the bacterium S. aureus. At least one in four healthcare-associated S. aureus bloodstream infections (HA-SAB) in Aotearoa New Zealand hospitals are linked to a PIVC.
A 12-month review of Aotearoa New Zealand HA-SAB events identified that medical devices were the source for just under three-quarters (71.1 percent) of all HA-SAB events. Read the report Healthcare-associated Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia: Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand districts.
The infection prevention and control team at Te Tāhū Hauora is working on a quality improvement initiative to reduce S. aureus bacteraemia associated with a PIVC.
In May 2023, we held four regional workshops to discuss PIVC management in Aotearoa New Zealand as part of scoping for the initiative. Fifty-five clinicians with an interest in reducing PIVC infections attended the workshops. The workshops shared local PIVC quality improvement initiatives and completed workshop activities to identify factors contributing to PIVC-associated infections and ideas for improvement.
In August 2023, Te Tāhū Hauora invited clinicians to take part in a survey on PIVC management in Aotearoa New Zealand using an interactive platform called ThoughtExchange. This enabled us to reach a broader range of clinicians and those who could not attend the workshops.
Results of the workshops and ThoughtExchange were presented at the Intravenous Nursing New Zealand conference in March 2024. The presentation can be viewed here: IVNNZ 2024 conference presentation (2.4MB, pdf).
A PIVC advisory group was established in August 2023 to provide sector leadership, advice and support to the initiative. The advisory group and Te Tāhū Hauora are currently working on the development of a PIVC infection prevention bundle for testing at district level. Expressions of interest will be sought from districts shortly for participation in this testing.
Look out for updates on this webpage and in our IPC newsletter.
For any questions, please contact the IPC team at IPC@hqsc.govt.nz.
