Training, management, and quality of nursing care of vascular access in adult patients: The INCATIV project

Abstract

Background: More than one billion of peripheral venous catheters are inserted into hospitalized patients every year. This study sought to identify the status of nursing care in vascular accesses in different hospitals and to evaluate the impact of a series of informative and formative interventions aimed at their care. Methods: Quasi-experimental, multicenter study. A total of 54 nursing professionals of 19 hospitals participated. The intervention consisted of informative talk and three training sessions related to the care and maintenance of vascular accesses and intravenous therapy in the hospital-admitted adult population. This was delivered in four years, with eight periodic cross-sectional assessments conducted before and after each intervention. To assess quality of nursing care in vascular accesses and intravenous therapy, a quality indicator called Standard Variable (VES), was developed and validated with the Delphi methodology. Results: A total of 21,108 patients, aged 64.0 years (SD 18.3), were assessed, of which 78.3% (16,516) had some type of vascular access inserted. An average of 22.1% (95% CI: 21.4–22.7) were classified as optimal. In total, 3218 nursing care professionals took part in the training activities. The VES indicator grew steadily throughout the study, raising from 7.8% to 37.6%. Changes were statistically significant between those time points in which one of the described interventions was delivered; however, there were no significant changes between time points with no intervention. Conclusions: This study supports that continuous training interventions can produce improvements in the quality of nursing care and reduce complications in patients with vascular accesses. In addition, the VES indicator was a useful and simple tool to measure quality, but the experience with its use suggests continuous research in the search for standardized indicators that objectify the evaluation and evolution of care.

An Explanatory Model of Vascular Access Care Quality: Results of a Cross-Sectional Observational Study

“…An observational, analytical, cross-sectional study in five public hospitals in the Valencian Community was conducted in May 2016. Data collection was carried out by observers trained by the coordinating team using the INCATIV Questionnaire, already used in the previous stage of this study [ 10 ]. All hospital beds in all wards/units were checked.…”

“…The “Quality Indicators in Intravenous Therapy” (INCATIV) project developed an instrument for monitoring indicators to measure the quality of VA care in 2008 [ 10 ]. This project arose from the need to identify the state of nursing care for our patients’ VAs and to evaluate the impact of training and information interventions on the level of this care.…”

“…Based on this questionnaire, an indicator called the Standard Variable (SV-Gold standard) was used, which collected the main recommendations in care and measured the level of compliance with them. The results of this study concluded that training activities and monitoring improved the quality of VA care [ 10 ].…”