Objectives To determine if more restrictive indications for urinary catheterisation reinforced by daily chart review will lower catheterisation rates.

Design An historical comparative observational study.

Setting An internal medicine department in a regional hospital in Israel.

Participants The authors compared 882 patients hospitalised after a change in policy to an historical cohort of 690 hospitalised patients. Exclusions included patients less than age 30 and those with bladder outlet obstruction.

Intervention Emergency and internal medicine department physicians received instruction on a more restricted urinary catheterisation policy. During daily chart rounds, admissions were discussed with an emphasis on the appropriateness of all new urinary catheter insertions.

Main outcome measures The primary outcome measure was catheterisation rate by admission diagnosis. Secondary outcome measures were the need for post-admission in hospital catheterisations and the rate of indwelling catheters 14 or more days after discharge.

Results There was a reduction in catheterisation rate in patients with congestive heart failure from 30/106 (29.3%) to 3/107 (2.8%) (p<0.001), in patients with an admission diagnosis of fever unable to provide a urine sample for culture from 35/132 (26.5%) to 12/153 (7.8%) (p<0.001) and in patients admitted for palliative care from 51.7% (15/29) to 12.0% (3/25) (p=0.002). The overall rate of catheterisation decreased from 17.5% (121/690) to 6.6% (58/882) (p<0.001). There was only one indicated catheterisation after admission due to the change in policy, and the proportion of patients discharged with catheters decreased.

Conclusion The use of more restrictive indications for urinary catheterisation along with daily chart rounds can reduce the rate of urinary catheterisation in an internal medicine department without adverse consequences.