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Heavy foot traffic in and out of the operating room during a procedure could be putting the safety of your patients in jeopardy according to a new study presented at the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Conference.
The safety team at Peace Arch Hospital in British Columbia, Canada, stumbled upon a connection between surgical site infections and the number of times the OR door is opened during a procedure. The correlation was observed after the hospital implemented initiatives to reduce high foot traffic during total joint replacement procedures. Instead of just reducing foot traffic, however, they also decreased their SSI rate.
To study the connection between the two, the hospital's safety team conducted a two-day study where they counted the number of door openings during nine total joint replacement procedures and one revision operation.
They counted between 42 and 70 door openings per procedure. Some of the reasons listed for coming in and out included: getting patient charts, securing surgical instruments or other supplies, and even taking a break.
To reduce the in-and-out traffic, the safety team stopped all traffic during total joint capsule opening and closure. They also increased their use of templates to determine the size of implants before they begin procedures.
After six months of applying those and other changes to lower foot traffic, researchers conducted a new traffic audit. They found the number of door openings decrease to an average of 3.2 per procedure. At the same time, the SSI rate also went down from 2.8 percent to 2.1 percent.
The safety team says it will conduct traffic audits every six months to monitor how well the safety initiatives are working. They also plan to expand the safety practices to general surgery, urology and gynecology.
To learn more, read the entire article.