Surgical Site Infection

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Changing reimbursement for hospital acquired infections makes it essential to ensure that you are doing everything you can to prevent a surgical infection.  While you are most likely monitoring the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) indicators for infection prevention, there are many other variables that can impact your infection rate.

Perioperative Environment

• Is your perioperative area being cleaned appropriately?
• Are supplies and equipment stored in the proper manner?
• Are supplies rotated appropriately?
• Are the traffic patterns in your operating room conducive to infection prevention?
• Is the ventilation system within the department providing you with the correct number of air exchanges per hour?

Perioperative Technique

• Is your staff following AORN recommended practices for sterile technique?
• Are they prepping and draping their patient correctly?
• Do they have a well developed surgical conscious?
• Are your anesthesia providers using good technique?

Sterilization Practices

• How many different sterilization techniques do you utilize at your facility?
• Are your personnel well trained in all of these techniques?
• How closely are your sterilization records monitored?
• Are you following AMMI ST79 standards for sterilization?
• Do you have an adequate supply of instruments to prevent the need for flash sterilization?
• Who is monitoring your flash sterilization logs and what is being done with them?
• Are contaminated instruments being confined and contained properly during transport?
• Are contaminated instruments being decontaminated and reprocessed correctly?

Surgical Infection Prevention Audit

If you cannot answer these questions with confidence, Alpha Consulting Group, Inc. can provide you with a one week intensive audit and give you the answers.  Our team of perioperative  and sterile processing experts will:

• Review all policies and procedures
• Directly observe all processes in the operating room and sterile processing
• Interview personnel in all perioperative areas
• Review sterilization records for completeness and accuracy
• Review staff competency and training records
• Provide a detailed report of results at the end of the week