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.