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Comprehensive Surveillance of Surgical Wound Infections in Outpatient and Inpatient Surgery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2016

Farrin A. Manian  and
Lynn Meyer
Farrin A. Manian*
Affiliation:
Department of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, St. John's Mercy Medical Center, St. Louis, Missouri
Lynn Meyer
Affiliation:
Department of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, St. John's Mercy Medical Center, St. Louis, Missouri
*
St. John's Mercy Medical Center, 621 S. New Ballas Road, St Louis, MO 63141
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Abstract

A surgeon-specific computer-generated monthly questionnaire was used to improve surveillance of surgical wound infections in outpatients as well as inpatients following discharge. From July 1988 through June 1989, 20,536 surgical procedures were performed at our medical center, of which 53% were for outpatients. The total wound infection rate was 0.63%: 0.13% in outpatients and 1.2% in inpatients (p<.005). Of the infected wounds, 20% were reported by the survey alone and would have gone undetected by conventional surveillance methods (71.4% of outpatient and 13.8% of inpatient wound infections). As a whole, clean and clean-contaminated wounds in outpatients were much less likely to become infected than those in inpatients. Wound cultures were not obtained in 85% of infections reported by the survey alone, and were less likely to be obtained in outpatients. The average time spent by the infection control department on the survey was approximately two hours per week.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 11 , Issue 10 , October 1990 , pp. 515 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1990

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