This practical guide, produced by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, describes key evidence-based care components for preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

The guide also describes how to implement these interventions and recommends measures to gauge improvement.

It focuses on those recommendations with sufficient evidence to be uniformly recommended for all patients. Four components of care recommended for all patients to prevent or reduce the risk of catheter associated UTI are:

• avoiding unnecessary urinary catheters
• inserting urinary catheters using aseptic technique
• maintaining urinary catheters based on recommended guidelines
• reviewing urinary catheter necessity daily and remove promptly