Ask A Magnet Nurse

Infection Prevention Has A Dedicated Team

Tara Barrett, BSN, RN, CCRN
Specialty Services
St. Joseph’s Candler

Smart Living: This year, St. Joseph’s/Candler developed a PIT (Preventing Infection and Injury through Teamwork) Crew to support bedside nurses with patients at high risk for infection. Is this like a racing pit crew, where a team of people comes together to make sure everything is working optimally?

Tara Barrett: Yes, we put our heads together and get in front of a problem before it happens. Certain patients may be at high risk for infections even with the regular interventions that we perform. This can be for a variety of reasons—skin conditions, allergies, or sometimes just because a patient is very sick. The bedside nurse can alert the PIT Crew, which I serve on along with two other nurses, Cathy Cribbs and Liz McClellan.

SL: What happens after you receive the call?

TB: We’ll come meet with the nurse and the patient, look through the patient’s chart and develop an individualized plan to protect that patient based on their unique situation. If necessary, we will enlist nurses from Infection Prevention, the Vascular Access team or Wound Care for their insight as well.

We developed this team to be as proactive as possible, as well as to support nurses who can sense the high risk for the patient. All of us want to get ahead of a problem and prevent it from even happening. Having a crew ready with their collective expertise helps both the bedside nurse and the patient.