Surgical Site Infection

A surgical site infection(SSI) is defined when a microorganism settles into and contaminates sterile tissue within 30 days of the surgery. Per the CDC (2017) SSIs are responsible for 31% of healthcare-associated infections or nosocomial infections which is the highest leading cause. This can happen before during or after a patient has surgery. There are many physiological risks that are evaluated before a person has surgery to see if they are at a high risk for a surgical site infection. Some of these factors are age, undernourishment or malnourishment, diabetes mellitus, substance or alcohol abuse, immune suppression, long preoperative stay in the hospital, surgical wound classification and long operative procedure (Fuller, 2013). Patients,
This is when an antiseptic is used to clean the surgical site to reduce the number of microorganisms to a minimum, an almost non-existent number. Personnel who will be working in the sterile field will perform a surgical scrub, don gown and gloves to have a sterile area to work. This is when aseptic technique starts. Aseptic technique is a set of rules and precautions used to create and maintain the sterile field we have created. There are many agencies dedicated to infection control some of which are the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) (Fuller, 2013). These infection prevention and control teams are at health care facilities to prevent infections (Shah, 2012). Certain guidelines must be set for proper disinfection and environmental cleaning of the facilities. Another method used to reduce SSIs is the sterilization of the instruments being used during the surgery. This process completely removes all microorganisms from these instruments. This process takes place in the decontamination area of the hospital. Some of the instruments used can be sterilized in the clean processing area as well (Fuller,
A superficial incisional SSI is one that occurs only on the skin or subcutaneous tissue of the incision site. There are two types of superficial incisional SSIs one is superficial incisional primary (SIP) which occurs at the primary incision site, the other is superficial incisional secondary (SIS) which occurs in the secondary incision site. Patients can experience drainage at the site of infection. A deep incisional SSI is one that infects the deep soft tissue at the incision site. There are also two types of these which are, deep incisional primary (DIP) that occurs at the primary site and deep incisional secondary (DIS) that occurs at the secondary incision site. Patients can experience drainage, pain, tenderness and/or a fever with this type of infection. An organ/space SSI is one that infects deeper than the deep soft tissue including any organs that were operated on or manipulated during surgery. Patients can experience all the previous symptoms along with abscess’s and drainage from the organ itself through a placed drain system (CDC, 2017). If not treated properly these infections can become very severe and life