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I N F E C T I O N
P R E V E N T I O N
Hospital, who presented a poster on
improving compliance with evidence-based skin
prepping techniques at the 2013
AORN Congress.
"It's the most up-todate and wellknown research"
among a recent
wealth of studies
backing CHG's
ONE OR THE OTHER The appropriate prepping agent is deterantiseptic power.
mined by the surgical site location, the prep's effectiveness
against SSI risks and patient sensitivities, among other factors.
Although infection preventionists pointed out that the study pitted a 2% CHG,
70% isopropyl alcohol product against an aqueous solution of 10%
povidone-iodine, this may not have been an uneven match, considering what ORs generally have on hand. "A Betadine soap-andpaint is what most people are using," if they're not using CHG,
says Ms. Hanus. "The study compared the 2 most commonly used
skin preps."
The Darouiche study may not have provided an apples-to-apples
appraisal of skin-prepping agents, says Gwenda Felizardo, RN,
BSN, CIC, an infection preventionist for Group Health
Cooperative in Seattle, Wash. The preps' differing uses and abilities make such a matchup difficult to study, "so we don't have any
overall comparison."
But, there's no disputing that there's still a place for povidone8 6
O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | J U N E 2013
