STUDY PROTOCOL Implementation of a child n

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Catheter-associated bloodstream infections (CA-BSIs) in hospitals are a worldwide serious persistent problem. Al-though often preventable, they are a source of morbidity, mortality, prolonged hospital stay, and rising costs [1-4]. CA-BSIs notably occur in units where many patients have central venous catheters (CVC); reported figures range from 1.2 to 23.0 CA-BSIs per 1000 line-days in neonatal intensive care units and from 1.8 to 7.8 CA-BSIs per 1000 line-days in pediatric intensive care units [3-8]. The corre-sponding figures from a pilot study we performed in 2011 are 11.2 and 7.9. Both unit types admit patients with compromised immune system and patients undergoing in-vasive procedures [9]. High incidences in neonatal inten-sive care units may be due to an immature host defence in preterm infants [5,10]. Pronovost et al. showed that the introduction of im-proved CVC insertion techniques helped to bring dow