Here are 10 articles from Becker's Infection Control & Clinical Quality on surgical errors and complications, including wrong-site surgeries and surgical site infections, which caught the attention of readers in 2015.
1. Infection control bundle including UV disinfection lowered SSIs to zero, study found
SSIs for patients undergoing total knee and total hip replacements at Trinity Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala., dropped to zero after the hospital implemented quality improvement initiatives and pulsed xenon ultraviolet room disinfection.
2. Surgical checklists may not be effective at improving safety, study finds
Checklists are often used in healthcare settings, like operating rooms, to try to prevent adverse patient events like SSIs or wrong-site surgery. But checklist-based quality improvement initiatives may not be effective at achieving that goal, according to a study published in JAMA Surgery.
3. As temperatures rise in the summer, so do common SSIs
Common SSIs increase in frequency during the summer months, according to research published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
4. MRSA decontamination reduces risk for SSIs in orthopedic surgery
Using a preoperative methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus decontamination protocol may help reduce SSIs, according to a study published in JAMA Surgery.
5. Top 9 risk factors leading to wrong-site surgery
According to the Joint Commission, 1,102 wrong-patient, wrong-site or wrong-procedure surgeries occurred from 2004 through 2014, even though they are preventable. The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses outlined the top nine factors that could lead to a wrong-site surgery, broken down in three categories.
6. Mayo Clinic researchers link surgical errors with human behaviors
Researchers from Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic used human factors analysis, a system originally developed to investigate military plane crashes, to identify four categories of human behavior that contribute to major surgical errors.
7. Preventing SSIs: The sterile processing connection
Most hospitals in recent years have focused needed attention on preventing SSIs. Properly timed antibiotics, skin antisepsis, appropriate hair removal, hand hygiene and other measures are now stressed as important to reducing SSI rates. But one critical dimension of infection safety has received comparatively little attention — the sterile processing department.
8. 10 most common causes of wrong-site surgeries, according to the Joint Commission
According to the Joint Commission, the majority of wrong-patient, wrong-site or wrong-procedure sentinel events had multiple root causes, including the 10 most common root causes outlined in this story.
9. 10 things for healthcare CFOs to know about SSIs
Millions of healthcare-associated infections occur annually in acute care hospitals in the U.S., costing billions of dollars in excess medical costs and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. This story highlights 10 things hospital CFOs should know about SSIs.
10. Study pinpoints diabetes as a risk factor for SSIs: 4 things to know
Compared to non-diabetic patients, patients with diabetes are at considerably greater risk for developing surgical site infections while undergoing most types of surgeries, according to a new study in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.