Action 3.12 states
The health service organisation has processes for the appropriate use and management of invasive medical devices that are consistent with the current edition of the Australian Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of Infection in Healthcare
Intent
Infections are minimised by the appropriate selection, safe insertion and maintenance, and timely removal of invasive medical devices.
Reflective questions
- Are organisational policies, procedures and processes for the use of invasive medical devices consistent with the Australian Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of Infection in Healthcare and other relevant national and jurisdictional guidance (i.e., Peripheral Venous Access Clinical Care Standard)?
- How does the organisation monitor the use of invasive devices to reduce client harm?
- What systems are in place for the workforce to use best practice when assessing clinical need and for the selection, insertion, maintenance, review and removal of invasive medical devices?
Examples of evidence
- Policy documents stipulating the criteria for selection, insertion, maintenance and removal of invasive medical devices, consistent with the Australian Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of Infection in Healthcare and the Peripheral Venous Access Clinical Care Standard
- List of approved invasive medical devices (for example, a register of medical devices) and indication for use
- Policies and processes for procurement, storage, transport, disposal, reuse, fault management and recall of invasive medical devices
- An established process for the safe introduction of new evidence based invasive medical devices
- Committee and meeting records where invasive medical devices are discussed
- Evidence of established training programs and workforce training records
- Feedback from the workforce on training requirements
- Audit results of workforce compliance with processes for the selection, insertion, maintenance and removal of invasive medical devices
- Gap analysis of organisational policies related to invasive devices use, compared with relevant jurisdictional or national guidance
- Review of invasive medical devices infection surveillance data
- Actions taken to manage identified risks with the selection, insertion, maintenance and removal of invasive medical devices
- Review of adverse patient outcomes data such as clinical incident summaries, morbidity and mortality reports or Root Cause Analysis (RCA) data relating to invasive medical devices
- Examples of improvement activities that have been implemented and evaluated.
See also: