Elizabeth Martinez, QSRG investigator, recently reported that these hazards included significant but unrecognized breaks in sterile procedures, including inadequate surgical skin prep and improper techniques for central line placement.
Peter Pronovost, director of QSRG, and leading the development of the FOCUS tools, emphasized the importance of these findings, and the critical need for such assessment tools, saying "Catheter based infections are both deadly and largely preventable, but evidence based therapies that prevent patient death are often not translated into clinical practice.