The Use of Continuous Quality Improvement Methodology To Improve Nurses’ Infection Control Practices at a General Hospital in Alexandria

Abstract

Hospitals worldwide have started to• implement Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) to improve quality of their services. CQI methodology has proved to be effective in reducing the occurrence of hospital infections and decreasing infection costs. The effectiveness of this methodology has not been tested in Egyptian hospitals.

The aim of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of CQI methodology in improving selected nurse' infection control practices at a general hospital The study was conducted at the Students' Hospital, which is one of Health Insurance Organization hospitals in Alexandria. It is a 262- bed general hospital that provides inpatient and outpatient services to school students. The study population consisted of important infection control practices performed by nurses. Important practices were defined as high­ volume, high-risk, high-cost, and problem prone activities. ased on these criteria, three practices were selected: (1) handwashing, (2) surgical site

dressing, and (3) peripheral intravenous catheterization.

The present study used pre-test post-test design to exarrune nurses' pra, tices before and after implementation of CQI project. It consisted of the following three distinct phases: (1) observation of nurses' practices before intervention, (2) implementation of a quality improvement project, and (3) observation of nurses' practices following implementation of the project.

Using Delphi technique, opinions of faculty staff members of the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University was used to develop observation checklists. The observation checklists then were pre-tested

The simple random sampling technique was used to select procedures for observation.