Surgical Site Infection Prevention Outcomes - Knee Replacement Surgery
What are we measuring?
The rate of surgical site infection (SSI) among patients who have undergone elective knee replacement surgery within the past quarter.
Note: Hospitals use different ways to calculate surgical infection rates. We calculate our rates per 100 cases, and include deep tissue infections and infections involving organs or spaces accessed during the operation.
Why is this important?
The rate of surgical site infection is an indicator of how well a hospital is following recommended guidelines for infection prevention and ensuring that everything possible is done prior to, during, and immediately following the surgical procedure to prevent hospital-acquired infections. These guidelines and practices are known as the "Surgical Site Infection Prevention Bundle."
What is our performance telling us?
The chart below shows how BIDMC's performance compares to our internal benchmark which is the average surgical infection rate for knee replacement surgery of the previous year. Look for big differences in the rates in order to be sure that the difference is meaningful. Small differences may not reflect real differences in performance (i.e., they may not be statistically significant).
*The Internal Benchmark for FY 2012 is the mean FY 2011 rate for elective knee replacement surgery. View our past performance over time.
BIDMC's rate of surgical site infection among patients undergoing elective knee surgery during the 4th Quarter of FY 2012 is 2.2 per 100 patients. For comparison, the average surgical site infection rate for knee replacement surgery at BIDMC in FY 2011 was 1.5, which represented 5 infections.
What are we doing to improve our performance?
BIDMC has established a Surgical Site Infection Prevention Committee comprised of surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses across many specialties and staff with expertise in infection control to develop specific infection prevention practices tailored to different surgical procedures such as knee and hip replacement surgery.
One component in the prevention of surgical site infections is the use of medicines called antibiotics. Each quarter, BIDMC orthopaedic surgeons routinely review how closely they are following recommended guidelines for surgical care in order to reduce the risk of infection as well as the side effects of antibiotics.
Patients undergoing elective knee or hip replacement surgery are screened at the pre-operative appointment for Staphylococcus aureus, a common bacteria found on the skin or in the nose. If this bacteria is present, this knowledge will help guide the physician in choosing the most effective antibiotics for the patient's procedure. Read more about the Surgical Site Infection Prevention Bundle for more details on our efforts to prevent surgical site infections.
Other useful measures on infections:
Last updated: January 17, 2013