Journal of the American College of Surgeons
-
Despite studies reporting successful interventions to increase antibiotic prophylaxis compliance, surgical site infections remain a significant problem. The reasons for this lack of improvement are unknown. This review evaluates the internal and external validity of quality improvement studies of interventions to increase surgical antibiotic prophylaxis compliance. ⋯ The methodology and reporting of quality improvement studies on perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis is suboptimal, and factors that would improve generalizability of successful intervention implementation are infrequently reported. Clinicians should use caution in applying the results of these studies to their general practice.
-
The Surgical Care Improvement Program endorses mandatory compliance with approved intravenous prophylactic antibiotics; however, oral antibiotics are optional. We hypothesized that surgical site infection (SSI) rates may vary depending on the choice of antibiotic prophylaxis. ⋯ The choice of IV antibiotic was related to the SSI rate; however, oral antibiotics were associated with reduced SSI rate for every antibiotic class.
-
The ability to measure surgical quality of care is important and can lead to improvements in patient safety. As such, processes should be carried out in an identical fashion for all patients, regardless of how vulnerable or complex they are. Our objectives were to assess quality of surgical care delivered to elderly patients and to determine the association between patient characteristics and quality of care. ⋯ Quality of care delivered to elderly patients undergoing major surgery at our institution was generally poor and independent of patient characteristics. Although quality appears to be uniform across different patients, these results provide targets for quality improvement initiatives.
-
The traditional American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) grading of renal injury does not adequately identify the subset of patients who are most likely to require intervention for bleeding. Recently, several high-risk criteria (HRC) for bleeding after renal injury were identified, and we sought to externally validate these criteria among patients with grade 4 renal injury. ⋯ Among patients with blunt grade 4 renal injury, the presence of ≥ 2 HRC effectively predicts the need for intervention for hemodynamic instability and can be used to identify patients who require intensive monitoring. The AAST grading system for renal injury should be modified to better reflect injury severity.