Ch. 14 Monitoring for Surgical Infection

Question 1

what are some requirements for an effective passive surveillance system

Answer 1

• standard and proper surgical site infection definition
• clear reporting of surgical site infection in the medical record
• search function that can retrieve all surgical site infection diagnoses
• medical record database that can provide number of surgeries performed by procedure
• culture and susceptibility data from surgical site infection cases can be retrieved

Question 2

what are the five main elements of a surgical site infection surveillance program

Answer 2

a written plan
consistency over time
appropriate personnel resources and mandates
review the program
do not reinvent the wheel

Question 3

what is passive surveillence

Answer 3

ex. reviewing medical records or culture reports
requires the numerator and denominator for surgical site infections
appropriate for most clinics because it is the least expensive and looks at all populations

Question 4

what is active surveillance

Answer 4

gathering data specifically for infection control - so taking cultures just for checking or calling owners 30 days after surgery to ask about infection
usually performed in outbreaks or in large facilities

Question 5

what is syndromic surveillance

Answer 5

using something else as a warning of infection - like in people, using school children’s absent days to identify an outbreak of disease
not very specific but it could rapidly identify problems