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protocol. But we knew it would be a challenge to get patients to embrace the idea. So when we decided to go for it, we set what we thought was a fairly optimistic goal of 90% compliance. Now, more than a year later, I'm proud to say we've exceeded that goal in every month, have had 100% compliance in several of those months, and overall, have had a 98% success rate.
WIPE OUT An instructor explains the 3-day CHG-wipe regimen to a pre-operative class Greater Baltimore Medical Center.
Here's how we did it.
We'd been talking to our joint
center team for 2 years about
how to better prevent SSIs. We knew the organisms causing of hip and knee patients at infections within our hip and knee patients were predominantly related to patient skin flora. Naturally, we already did pre-op bathing on the morning of surgery, but it wasn't enough. When we got word that the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Project JOINTS (Joining Organizations IN Tackling SSIs) Collaborative was accepting a second cohort of hospitals, it was a no-brainer for us. We joined in the spring of 2012.
The 3 days of CHG application is one of the key components of the Project JOINTS "enhanced surgical bundle" to prevent infections. And joining the initiative gave us access to a wealth of educational tools, compliance tracking method-ologies, and presentations to help ensure success. Our rollout was pretty smooth. Because our joint cen
