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No hospitalized patient loves getting a urinary catheter. But if they must have one, the last thing they want is a urinary tract infection caused by bacteria that seize their chance to grow on the catheter.

Worse yet, some of those microbes might even use the catheter, or a catheter-related skin break in a sensitive area, as a highway into their bladder or bloodstream.

That's why patient safety experts have worked for 25 years to reduce this risk. They've tested and promoted strategies that encourage hospital teams to use catheters only when patients need them the most and to take other steps to prevent and watch for catheter-associated urinary tract infections, or CAUTIs.

Now, a new study shows that while hospitals across the country have made progress over the last 20 years, they still have far to go on some key strategies.

The study is published in JAMA Network Open by a University of Michigan Medical School and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System team that has led the urinary catheter safety charge for two decades.

In all, only 49% of general hospitals and 32% of hospitals run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have a system in place to remind doctors that their patient has a catheter or require doctors to proactively renew a patient's catheter order after a certain amount of time.

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