One in four Americans in the hospital right now has a urinary catheter. One percent of them will get a urinary tract infection from that catheter. All of those will require antibiotics. A few may suffer life-threatening complications. And with every new case, UTIs will retain their title of “most common hospital-acquired infection,” responsible for 40 percent of infections related to hospitalization.

But despite all this, a new study finds, American hospitals don’t seem to have a consistent strategy for preventing catheter-related UTIs. In fact, the study shows, most hospitals aren’t using basic tactics that have been proven to keep patients from getting catheter-related UTIs in the first place.

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