Study finds low rate of infections following ambulatory surgery

The absolute number of patients with these complications is still substantial, according to JAMA

By Healthcare Facilities Today


In an analysis that included nearly 300,000 patients from eight states who underwent ambulatory surgery, researchers found that the rates of surgical site infections were relatively low; however, the absolute number of patients with these complications is substantial, according to a study in JAMA.

Surgical site infections are among the most common healthcare-associated infections, accounting for 20 percent to 31 percent of healthcare-associated infections in hospitalized patients, according to an article on the Infection Control Today website.

Although ambulatory surgeries represent a substantial portion of surgical healthcare, there is a lack of information on adverse events, including healthcare-associated infections, the article said.

The researchers found that the overall rate of postsurgical acute care visits within 14 days for clinically significant surgical site infections (CS-SSIs) was relatively low (3.09 per 1,000 ambulatory surgical procedures). When the time frame was extended to 30 days, the rate increased to 4.84. Two-thirds (63.7 percent) of all visits for CS-SSI occurred within 14 days of the surgery; of those visits, 93.2 percent involved treatment in the inpatient setting. 

The authors said that although the overall rate of CS-SSIs was low, because of the large number of ambulatory surgical procedures, in absolute terms, a substantial number of patients develop clinically significant postoperative infections.

Read the article.

 

 

 

 



February 26, 2014


Topic Area: Safety


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