Infection Control in the Operating Room

Infection Control in the Operating Room

 Brianna Gallegos

Grand Canyon University: NSG 448

September 25. 2016

Infection Control in the Operating Room

Infection control is a reoccurring issue that is still arising in present practice. The neglecting act of the health care professionals’ inadequate implementation to maximize their precautions of duty is the biggest reasons for the occurrence of surgical site infections (SSI). These surgical site infections remain at the second most common hospital-acquired infections. It is known that 40-60 percent of these SSIs are totally preventable with the execution of safe practice (McDowell, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to introduce the proposed topic in a PICOT statement, provide a rationale for the proposed plan, identify the resources necessary for the project, to recognize the stakeholders involved, and then to deliver the benefits of the project.

PICOT Statement

The PICOT statement is a model utilized in evidenced-based practice to formulate evidence-based practice questions (Schmidt & Brown, 2015). The acronym stands for population, the intervention of interest, comparison of interest, outcome, and time frame. The population will be all patients undergoing any type of orthopedic surgery with no signs of prior infection. The intervention of interest is proper hand hygiene from all health care professionals involved in the surgery and correct timing of prophylaxis antibiotics. The comparison of interest is improper hand hygiene and no prophylaxis use or incorrect timing. The outcome intended is a reduced rate of surgical site infections between zero to ten percent. The time frame is in the time the patient is admitted to discharge.

Rationale

        Infection control is still remains a struggle in today’s health care practice. For this reason, healthcare facilities and professionals are continuously looking for ways to emphasize infection control in their facility. The area of healthcare that is always considering the best evidenced-based practice to implement in everyday practice is the operating room due to the high risk of infection. Surgical site infections are a particular concern because of the increase in costs, readmission rates, lengths of stay, and patient mortality. There are an estimated 27 million surgical procedures conducted every year in the United States. It is reported that SSIs occur at a rate of two out of every 100 procedures. This results in an increase of hospital stay by approximately nine days and the treatment of a SSI is between 400 to 30,000 dollars (Lissovoy, 2009). Due to the significance of these statistics, a change project such as this one can create an opportunity to reduce these statistics. The project will consider multiple resources of research and current practice to implement a change of practice in regard to adequate hand hygiene and the correct use of prophylactic antibiotics. In addition to implementing a change of these two techniques to prevent SSIs, the ultimate goal of this project is to create awareness for the need of a standardized protocol of a safety checklist for all operating rooms throughout the country. This safety checklist will go beyond the Joint Commission’s Time Out protocol, and provide a detailed list that must be reviewed before every procedure. This list will consist of multiple infection control strategies, such as proper personal protective equipment of all personnel in the operating room.

Resources

        The largest resource that will be used in this project is research articles related to the topic of the change project. The articles that are being used are “Back to Basics: Preventing Surgical Site Infections,” “The Effect of Preoperative Skin Preparation Products on Surgical Site Infection,” “Hand Contamination, Cross-Transmission, and Risk-Associated Behaviors: An Observational Study of Team Members in ORs,” “Safety Checklist Briefings: A Systematic Review of The Literature,” “Proper Use Of Surgical N95 Respirators and Surgical Masks in The OR,” and other relevant articles needed for resources. Research is so important for this project because it provides credulity of the project. It also provides a backbone for support why the change is being implemented. Additional resources in the project will contain personal clinical experience, interviews from current health care professionals that work in the OR, and information from the Association of Operating Nurses. These resources are beneficial to provide information that lacks in the current research. These resources also give essential information of current practices wants and needs and also ways to encounter a successful change project.