title: Decreasing the incidence of surgical wound infections. Validation of a surveillance-notification program.
abstract: In an attempt to validate the observations of a previously published ten-year study of surgical wounds, we studied 8,474 wounds over an 18-month period using a protocol nearly identical to that of the previous study. Our study corroborated the following predictors of clean-wound infection: increasing duration of surgery, age less than 1 or greater than 50 years, increasing duration of preoperative hospitalization, use of drains, and shaving and emergency surgery. We failed to corroborate use of wound irrigation as a protective measure or time of preoperative shaving as a significant variable. Most importantly, we found a 42% reduction in the clean-wound infection rate during the study period (1.9% to 1.1%), adding support to the concept that a wound surveillance program with surgeon notification is both efficacious and cost-effective.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003625:Data Collection; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011300:Preoperative Care; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000379:methods; D013530:Surgical Wound Infection / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D013997:Time Factors; D014707:Vermont