Surgical Sites Infection - Research Paper Example

Surgical infections were a very common eventuality from the early 19th Century. Evidently, the sheer magnitude of the risk imposed by SSIs to both the medical practitioners and, in particular, patients cannot be overlooked. Its impact on the healthcare system is truly innate-costs, mortality, and morbidity. In the year 1992, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) renamed all infections related to operation procedures from surgical wound infections to surgical site infections for a wider coverage and more accurate representation of related infections.

The close relationship between healthcare practice, mortality, morbidity, and the cost element associated with the aforementioned shall constitute the crux of the case for greater innovation for effective SSIs management. It is possible that majority of SSIs are preventable. To this end several bodies are tasked with the responsibilities of policy formulation (guidelines and recommendations) that are aimed towards largely preventing and controlling surgical site infections by all healthcare professionals.

Although there has been much improvements in surgical site infections prevention, hospital acquired infections continue to increase globally (Alvarado, 2000). Most contamination by SSIs occurs through contamination of the incision by microorganisms from the body of the patient during surgery. Consequently it is prudent that in light of this mechanism of infection that substantial reduction of SSI infections can be undertaken in essentially one of three stages: Pre-operation phase, intra-operation phase, and post-operation phase.

In the pre-operation phase, I observe how surgical practices influence patient-infection right before undergoing the surgical procedure itself. The larger working area in surgical operations is the skin. Various types of bacteria inhabit the skin with up to 50% being staphylococcus. The primary source of wound infection during surgical operation has been found to be the skin. Evidence from a research done on the effects of body disinfection on intra-operation wound infection shows that by washing the skin where the incision is to be made with a pre-operation wash having chlorhexidine reduces the bacteria add up on the skin by eighty to ninety percent, and as such a reduction in the wound infection (Bryne, Cuschieri, Napier, & Phillips, 2003).

A ten year research on 62,939 wounds determine whether or not the removal of hair from the skin to be operated on (shaving) and its timing could be contributive to surgical site infections. It was established that infection risk amplifies with the increase in duration of the time spent between shaving and conduction of the actual operation. Surgical sites that were shaved two hours before surgery were found to have a clean wound infection rate of 2.3% (Cruse & Foord, 2000).Where the body hair was clipped instead of being shaven recorded a clean wound infection rate of 1.7%. Where the body hair was neither shaved nor clipped, the wound infection rate was seen to drop to a mere 0.9%.The study concluded that where shaving is essential before surgery, then it should be done as closest to the commencement of the surgery as possible.

Perhaps the most successful method of combating surgical site infections was seen through the pioneering use of antiseptic surgery by Ignaz