Researchers from the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics in Madison formed a "Strike Team" to create oversight and determine the possible cause of surgical site infections that occurred after colorectal surgery.
While it was active, the team was responsible for meeting monthly to review cases where patients who had undergone colorectal surgery subsequently came down with surgical site infections to determine how it may have occurred and what measures can be put in place to prevent it from happening again. The team published the results Jan. 30 in the Journal for Healthcare Quality.
The team's continuous activity was disrupted by the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, but results from the time it was regularly reviewing cases of surgical site infections following the procedure led to a "statistically significant reduction in SSIs," researchers wrote.
Infection rates rebounded following the Strike Team's disbandment due to the pandemic, which while not ideal, still underscored its usefulness when it had been in place.
Managing surgical site infections in the context of healthcare "requires a resource-intensive, multidisciplinary approach with numerous strategies to improve adherence to infection control bundles," the authors of the research wrote, pointing to the positive outcomes from the implementation of their strike team.
Becker's reached out to the University of Wisconsin Health to verify whether the Strike Team had been reimplemented since the initial brunt of the pandemic had eased. This story will be updated if more information becomes available.