Do you have 3 minutes during your day to help reduce infection risk and ICU acquired complications?
How can you do this effectively and, in an evidence, based manner? Several studies have shown that the use of bedside checklists can increase adherence to measures to prevent serious events, such as VAP, ICS, and DVT, and reduce the duration of catheter use, mechanical ventilation, and ICU admission. Although there are controversies about its impact on mortality reduction, studies generally point to the benefits that are cost-effective and patient-centered. Monitoring pain, adequate sedation, delirium, and prevention of infectious events are fundamental steps to generate information for decision making. Why use a checklist? In the ICU environment, hundreds of decisions are made daily, which often interrupt the process of performing some tasks. Therefore, tools that systematize certain processes ensure that they are done. Monitoring the realization of these processes with analytics (www.epimedsolutions.com) shows the difference between what we do and “what we think we do”. A study by bricnet.org that took place in Brazil proved that the utilization of the checklist in 118 ICUs reduced the length of use of invasive devices and improved the sense of safety among the working team. Doctors and nurses who use the Epimed System report spending between one and five minutes to perform the checks on a patient’s checklist.
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