Prevention of Surgical Infections

The post operative infection rate for patients having surgeries has slowly increased over the last several years and preventing surgical site infections (SSIs) has become a priority with many surgeons. The studies reviewed for this research have stressed the importance of prophylactic antibiotic therapy (Stefansdottir, et al. 2009) and that the timing of this dose being given is becoming the utmost importance; along with the importance of appropriate antibiotic being given. There is not a large study found for the need of post operative antibiotic therapy to be given, the studies found show that there is a question of the effect of the antibiotics after 24-48 hours post procedure. Surgical Practice (2006) reported of a study done in the United Kingdom that showed that the need for preoperative screenings are now being questioned due to the fact that patients are carrying infective microorganisms into the operating room on themselves and the surgical scrub is not enough to alleviate the possibility of an infection. The purpose of this study is to show the relationship of post operative infections in arthroscopic orthopedic surgical patients who were given antibiotic treatment pre-operatively compared to patients who did not receive any antibiotic therapy.
In reviewing literature of previous research studies regarding preoperative antibiotic therapy for surgical procedures, there was a barrier in the knowledge of whether the importance of administering antibiotics was necessary or not. A campaign to prevent one hundred thousand unnecessary deaths was promoted by The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), this campaign was to help with reducing surgical infections in all areas of surgery. For this study the IHI stated “The goal of prophylactic antibiotic therapy administered before surgery is to protect the patient from infection with as little risk as possible. To meet this goal, clinicians must administer antibiotics when they’ll do the most good and

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