Title: Road to Preventing Bacterial Infections during Intravenous Line Access- A Safer Way to Delivering Quality Healthcare
Principal Investigator: LILLY IMMERGLUCK, MD
Coordinator: ELHAM LAGHAIE, MS
Project Abstract/Summary:
The purpose of this proposal is to compare different connectors that are commonly used in the healthcare setting for medical procedures. These connectors are used to help with administration of intravenous lines. We will be comparing the standard luer connector to another connector, SmashCap, which was created to help reduce touch contamination. We hypothesize that the SmashCap will be less likely to have touch contamination from bacteria than standard luer connectors. This project will evaluate the acceptability of SmashCap compared to the standard luer connectors in simulated clinical settings using pediatric and adult nurses, who vary in terms of frequency of accessing intravenous (IV) lines.
The study objectives are to:
1) Observationally study nurses in their natural setting to determine the frequency nurses access IV lines
2) Rate the acceptability and overall ease of use with SmashCap among clinical end users (nurses from Atlanta area hospitals) of similar standard devices in healthcare delivery setting.
This project is important because this will build on work already conducted by the inventor and developer of the SmashCap connector, Dr. Joseph Schultz, by providing quality assessment information needed to further product development and design.