Reducing the number of people moving in and out of the operating room during orthopedic surgery may reduce rates of surgical site infections, according to results from a new study presented Monday at the 2016 American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Conference in San Diego.
The study was conducted at Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock, British Columbia. At Peace Arch, a hospital-appointed safety commission administered surveys to OR staff to asses perceptions regarding what practices were most harmful to patients. Both nurses and surgeons reported too much traffic in the OR and suspected this behavior led to patient harm.
Over the course of two days, researchers manually counted how many people moved in and out of the OR during a complete joint procedure. From incision time to joint capsule closure time — which took an average of 75 minutes — counters recorded between 42 and 70 door openings per operation.
Subsequently, the hospital implemented strategies to reduce OR traffic, including ceasing all traffic between joint opening and closure, using a phone to communicate beyond the OR and identifying the size of the implant prior to surgery. These strategies reduced the average number of door openings per operation to 3.2.
After the intervention, the hospital experienced a reduction in SSIs from 2.8 percent to 2.1 percent.
Peace Arch is now committed to limiting traffic in the OR and is planning to expand the practice beyond orthopedics into other services like general surgery, gynecology and urology.
More articles on infection control:
State-by-state progress in reducing abdominal hysterectomy SSIs
Michigan day camp worker with meningitis dies
Algorithm predicts effective treatments for drug-resistant fungal infections