The majority of hospitalized patients can expect to receive an IV catheter during
their hospital stay. In fact, peripheral IV placement is the most common invasive
procedure performed worldwide. Yet, it is well documented that IV failures and
complications remain unacceptably high.¹

Facilities must address these issues to improve patient quality of care. Observation
through bedside rounding is an effective strategy to highlight these issues and
brainstorm solutions to both improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.

One large, urban community hospital has been successful in bringing together unit-based staff,
nursing leadership, nursing professional development, clinical nurse specialists, infection prevention –
the Jamboree team – all with the shared goal of improving vascular access outcomes through routine
monthly rounding.²

Michelle DeVries, MPH, CIC, VA‐BC, shares her facility’s collaborative process, dubbed
a ‘Vascular Access Jamboree’, in a three‐part workshop series. These recorded
workshops can be viewed HERE and contain actionable take‐aways.

A Vascular Access Jamboree is a large, festive gathering of nursing unit leadership,
infection prevention, professional development and industry partners collectively
performing routine bedside rounding and documenting observations with the goal of
improving patient care. This quality improvement audit is treated as a monthly
opportunity to partner around best practice for patients.

Establishing clear goals and definitions is done to understand what the team aims to
accomplish, what data needs to be collected and analyzed, and to designate a
uniform way to record the data. Consistency in all these areas is important so
everyone is on the same page.

The next step is building the Vascular Access Jamboree. This team is generally
composed of both a Hospital Team and Industry Partners, as seen in the table below.

It is important to note that selling/upselling products is not done during a Vascular
Access Jamboree. All team members from across the hospital team and industry
partners must be focused on improving patient quality of care through respectful
collaboration.

Before collecting data, both a purpose and an end goal to measure success must be
defined. An example from a Vascular Access Jamboree was a quality improvement
project to decrease premature dressing changes to reduce infection risk. The end goal
was for 80% dressings to remain fully intact without reinforcement for up to 7 days, or
when the dressing had to be changed due to other reasons.

This pilot project found that while education alone failed to achieve desired outcome,
two types of dressings, when paired with gum mastic adhesive, were successful in
keeping dressings intact more than 80% of the time. While increasing adhesion is
important to keep dressings intact, higher risk of skin‐tear injuries can be a concern
while doing so. However, no skin‐related injuries were reported from any patients
who received the gum mastic adhesive, dressing, and education combination.³
Access the full study HERE. [Devries‐JWOCN]

Routine observation will highlight trends and uncover issues. However, often such
issues are at the intersection of several different products. Addressing these problems
can be done with multifaceted approaches that include:

• Leveraging expertise between various devices
• Direct observation rather than chart review
• Reviewing practice rather than policy

The basic components of creating a Vascular Access Jamboree are:.

• Plan: Let’s have a jamboree!
• Do: Gather the team and round patient bedsides
• Check: Come back and do it again
• Act: What do we need to do differently?

Trends are then examined by device, by unit, and by quarter in reaching the defined
improvement. Jamborees that are unannounced ensure units are observed as they
routinely operate.

The 2021 INS Standards recommend using audits and feedback when implementing
changes in practice.⁴ Jamboree‐associated audits have:

• Changed policies
• Improved practices
• Increased collaboration
• Strengthened understanding
• Optimized product use

Eloquest Healthcare, Inc. can partner with your institution to facilitate a Vascular
Access Device Site Assessment to determine the state of both dressing and skin
integrity for patients in your facility, while providing you and your team with
information on your facility’s infection risk, nurse efficiency, and product waste.
Click HERE to request a Point Prevalence Assessment
today!

Planning Checklist

Guide for Establishing Priorities