made to eliminate them than to reducing SSI rates.
There are also indirect costs to consider when assessing the overall
impact of SSIs, not the least of which is the reputation of your facility
in this era of publicly reported infection rates and healthcare trans-
parency. Infection rates are becoming more visible and meaningful to
patients, and low performing facilities could lose out on capturing
patients whose awareness and sophistication of quality surgical care
are driving where they go for surgery. Payers are also denying reim-
bursement for preventable SSIs, so there's more incentive than ever to
drive down infection rates.
What more can be done?
Until SSIs are eliminated, we need to reassess why infections continue
to persist and start think-
ing about the problem
and potential solutions in
different ways. For
example, it's known that
smokers have a higher
risk of wound complica-
tions and post-op infec-
tion. We've always attrib-
uted that risk to poor cir-
culation, but smoking
significantly impacts the
type of bacteria that
grows in the skin, lungs
and organs. Smoking
might increase the bad
bacteria that contributes
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