Nursing

Study: SSI bundle lowers the risk of infections for joint and cardiac surgeries

Nurse Leader Insider, September 17, 2015

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Nurse Leader Insider!

Surgical bundles have become commonplace in the healthcare industry, particularly to help stave off dangerous infections. A recent study looking specifically at cardiac procedures and joint replacement procedures shows that a previously untested surgical site infection (SSI) bundle can offer an additional element of prevention as hospitals strive to reduce infection rates.

The study, published in June by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that a bundled approach to SSI prevention in which patients who tested positive for methicillin-resistant staph aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-susceptible staph aureus (MSSA) applied mupirocin intranasally twice a day five days prior to surgery and bathed in chlorhexidine-gluconate for five days prior to surgery. The treatment can reduce complex SSIs anywhere from 40% to 75% depending on adherence. Patients that tested positive for MRSA or MSSA were also given vancomycin and cefazolin prior to surgery.

Loreen Herwaldt, MD, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, a hospital epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, and the lead author of the study, said that elements of the bundle have been previously studied separately, but no one had looked at all of the elements bundled together.

Read the rest of the article here, part of the Reading Room on www.StrategiesForNurseManagers.com.



Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Nurse Leader Insider!

Most Popular