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A U G U S T 2 0 1 4 | S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
month or quarter there's an unexpected peak in infec-
tion rates. No one really understands why, but there's a
lot of talk about what people must be doing wrong and
how to do things better. So the facility doubles down
and tries to "fix" things without really getting to and
understanding the root causes. People pay more atten-
tion to sterile technique and guidelines and the rate
goes down without a clear understanding. But then,
sometime further down the road, it unexpectedly rises
again, and the scenario repeats itself.
Sound familiar? One problem is that usually the
increased infection rate involves a significantly sized
group of surgeons and providers, each of whom does
things a little differently. The resulting large number of
variables makes it very difficult to isolate probable
causes. Unfortunately, unless you drill down to that
level of detail, the problem is bound to keep coming
back.
The stakes are too high to rely on that approach.
SSIs lead to revision surgery, delayed healing,
increased use of antibiotics and increased length of
stay, all of which in turn lead to increased costs,
reduced profits and decreased patient satisfaction.
In the spine department at Thomas Jefferson
University Hospital, we set a goal of zero infections. To
get there, we decided to try a somewhat radical
approach. We rejected the tendency most surgeons
have, which is to do things the way they've always
been done or the way they've always done them. We
were and are willing to totally change, if there's evi-
P R E V E N T I N G I N F E C T I O N S
We looked closely
at every relevant
piece of information
we could find about
the things that
happen before,
during and
after surgery.
ON TIME, EVERY TIME The literature
is clear: When you administer antibi-
otics is of the utmost importance.
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN
