Preventing Line Sepsis

I recently had the opportunity to chair an important expert panel in Washington DC concerned with reducing the occurence of line sepsis. The COOK corporation gave an unrestricted educational grant to our department to organize and facilitate this panel. There were representatives from many major national organizations, hospitals, and policy groups. We explored all the issues and were treated to two spectacular summaries by former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill and the key ABC News Flight Safety correspondent, John Nance. The bottom line---it's the culture of the organization!!! You can lead a doc to water but you can't, apparently, make him follow agreed upon, evidence based guideline of care, without paying sufficient attention to the culture. We have to give docs, and others, good reasons to follow the guidelines and give them good information about how they might do a better job. Slogans, exhortations, and the like, will not work. Culture beats technology every time. The day after the panel we held a press conference at the National Press Club and we got some outstanding attention from both the lay and medical press. Be on the lookout for our materials, especially at US NEWS and WORLD REPORT. See the links posted here too. As always, I am interested in your views. How are you preventing line sepsis today?? DAVID NASH