Researchers have reduced surgical site infections (SSIs) in patients undergoing colorectal operations by 61.7 percent in less than two years, according to a study published ahead of print in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
SSIs remain one serious threat to patient health, accounting for 20 percent of hospital-acquired infections. In this study, researchers—from Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient in Baltimore, the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and the University of California, San Francisco—evaluated the effectiveness of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)’s Safety Program for Surgery in reducing the number of SSIs following colorectal surgery.
"It's a major problem because half of the patients in our hospitals have an operation, putting them at risk for infection afterwards," said study coauthor Julius Cuong Pham, MD, PhD, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins and a patient safety officer at the Queens Medical Center in Honolulu. "And a colorectal operation is a procedure with one of the highest rates of surgical site infection."
A total of 15 hospitals implemented the program, with data collected from January 2013 to June 2015. Following the implementation of AHRQ's Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP), a program that uses feedback from providers to improve surgical teamwork and patient safety, researchers noted a 61.7 percent decrease in colorectal SSIs. Additionally, safety culture improved in 10 of 12 categories.
"With this collaborative, we created a platform that allowed diverse types of hospitals to come together and accelerate learning and change," said lead study author Della M. Lin, MD, MS, an anesthesiologist in the department of surgery, University of Hawaii. "By not working in silos, we were able to accelerate the reduction in surgical site infections faster and perhaps more effectively than hospitals could do by themselves."
Cara joined TriMed Media in 2016 and is currently a Senior Writer for Clinical Innovation & Technology. Originating from Detroit, Michigan, she holds a Bachelors in Health Communications from Grand Valley State University.