1 0 1
D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 | O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T
When the Bon Secours St.
Mary's Hospital in
Richmond, Va., noticed an
uptick in its infection rates
for breast, joint and spine
cases in 2013, it took
action. "We saw the cases
and knew that the com-
monality was that an
implant was involved," says Jean Watling, RN, BSN, CNOR, perioperative nurse man-
ager. "So we formed an SSI taskforce to look at every possible contributor to infec-
tion." The team reviewed literature and implemented several new initiatives, says
Ms. Watling, including:
• Better skin prepping. Patients receive CHG wipes to use at home before the
day of surgery. In pre-op, staff applies the CHG wipe again to the patient. Hair is
removed with clippers in pre-op instead of in the OR. Finally, surgeons have moved
from using aqueous preps in the OR to CHG-based ones.
• Updated environmental cleaning. In addition to increasing the education of
housekeeping staff, the hospital also started using a touch-point cleaning checklist
to ensure staffers hit every high-touch area between cases. The hospital also pur-
chased a UV robot to disinfect the ORs overnight.
• Restructured employee actions. Leadership started monitoring staff and sur-
geon hand hygiene compliance, limiting traffic in the OR and enforcing a stricter
dress code.
The changes worked. The flurry of initiatives and new products helped bring the
hospital's SSI rate from 0.5% to 0.36% this past year. — Kendal Gapinski
CASE REPORT
A Hospital Lowers its SSI Rate
z EXTRA STEPS The Bon
Secours St. Mary's Hospital in
Richmond, Va., added UV
whole-room disinfection units.
