Outpatient Surgery Magazine - Subscribers

Accreditation Dings - August 2013 - Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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Page 36 C H G B A T H I N G about 1 or 2 patients a month who complain that the wipes cause them uncomfortable itching. When that happens, we contact the surgeons, many of whom tell us to tell the patients to stop using the wipes. That's because if they're causing a rash, surgery might have to be delayed. But it's a very small number of patients who are affected, and even then, the patients have usually had a couple of days' worth of treatment. Clearly, we're getting the message across, because we've now had almost 400 patients go through the training, and only 2 have flat-out refused the bathing protocol. Is it working? We won't know for sure whether our reduction in infections is statistically significant or not until the end of calendar year 2013, but so far this year, infection rates for both hip and knee procedures are less than 1%, and we feel confident that hip-related infections in particular have been reduced. Ms. Mayoryk (smayoryk@gbmc.org) works in infection prevention at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Baltimore, Md.

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