Collecting Site-Level Data on Organisms Causing Surgical Site Infections to Guide Quality Improvement

Surgical site infections (SSIs) negatively affect patients and health care organizations. We conducted a descriptive, correlational study at two hospitals that provide care to rural patients in one Midwestern state. The study purposes were to describe: types of organisms causing reportable organ/space SSIs that occurred within 30 days of an open or a laparoscopic abdominal surgery (N = 20), and commonalities in patient- and care-related factors to provide baseline information for site-level prevention efforts for quality improvement. We identified Escherichia coli in almost half of the SSI cases (n = 9, 45%). Common patient-related factors included ethnicity, smoking, and dirty or contaminated wounds. Common care-related factors included longer surgery times (> 60 minutes), unplanned surgeries, and procedures that involved the colon or small bowel. Personnel can use site-level data to monitor prevalent types of organisms causing SSIs, enabling an evidence-based, interdisciplinary approach to develop and test methods to enhance prevention.