How will a surgical site infection (SSI) develop in the next patient who has colorectal surgery? What can we do to prevent it? These 2 questions helped a team at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to identify 6 interventions that achieved a 33% reduction in SSIs after colon operations. The…

Read More

A spore test strip is now available for the Steris System 1E Liquid Chemical Sterilant Processing System. The Steris Verify Spore Test Strip for S40 was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2012. What is the role of this new spore test strip? How is this…

Read More

A new villain has emerged in the struggle against drug shortages that continue to plague health care: the single-use vial. When a vial of injectable medication contains more than a particular patient needs, if the vial is designated “single-use,” the remainder must be discarded, according to recommendations from the Centers…

Read More

A high rate of nurse burnout is linked to higher rates of catheter-related urinary tract infection (UTI) and surgical site infection (SSI), a new study in the American Journal of Infection Control finds. How can that be? How could burnout be linked to SSIs? The lead author, Jeannie Cimiotti, DNSc,…

Read More

Narrow-lumened instruments and endoscopes are one of your biggest reprocessing challenges. They have the highest risk of being improperly processed, notes Michelle J. Alfa, PhD, FCCM, a researcher in health care-associated infections. If the lumens and channels of endoscopes are not cleaned properly, high-level disinfection or sterilization may not be…

Read More

OR leaders will want to check that their surgical site infection (SSI) rates are in line with 5-year goals in the updated National Action Plan for reducing health care-associated infection (HAI) from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). By and large, hospitals are on target to meet SSI…

Read More

Infection control is in the spotlight again, as ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) examine a draft Health and Human Services (HHS) document calling for closer scrutiny of precautions in outpatient settings. The agency released a draft of Phase 2 of its National Action Plan to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) on April…

Read More

A surgical site infection (SSI) prevention “bundle” is helping OR teams at Maine Medical Center (MMC) in Portland to further a strategic goal of preventing SSIs. Known as Operation Zero, or “Op-Z,” the initiative is led by the chief of surgery, Brad Cushing, MD, with inspiration from a family whose…

Read More

Are you following recommended practices when processing implants? Both the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) and the Association of Perioperative Nurses (AORN) state that a load containing an implant should be quarantined until the results of the biological indicator (BI) testing are available. The rationale is to…

Read More

Gently probing a wound with a dry cotton swab after surgery for a perforated appendix dramatically reduced infections in a study. Only 3% of patients who had the daily probing got surgical site infections (SSIs) compared with 19% in the control group who did not. Though the exact mechanism isn't…

Read More