A prospective cohort study from the American Journal of Infection Control concluded the implementation of a follow-up phone call policy for patients who had cesarean sections was able to identify 26.3 percent of surgical site infections.
Of the 193 patients included in the review, 14 had infections that were identified using standard surveillance methods, but phone calls were able to find an additional five infections.
"Our research might be more useful to infection control staff than clinicians in particular as it can be a useful tool for surveillance," lead author Muhammad Halwani, PhD, told Medical Research in an interview. "Regarding patients, the study proves that the follow-up methodology is not as burdensome as some people might expect. On the contrary, almost all the study's patient participants expressed their appreciation for this type of communication as some of them benefited greatly from the service."
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