Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages PL
Thanks for the information.
JAMA Network | JAMA Surgery | Timing of Surgical Antibiotic Prophylaxis and the Risk of Surgical Site Infection
The following statement, from the above link, got my attention:
"Numerous studies have failed to demonstrate that adherence to the Surgical Care Improvement Project prophylactic antibiotic timely administration measure is associated with decreased surgical site infection (SSI)."
Therefore it seems if The Villages hospital is making progress with this problem it's not because of prophylactic antibiotics. We still don't know the extent of the problem, like what is their infection rate and how does it compare with previous years. Or: How many people die each year from infections? There's no substitute for them being straight-forward with the public. |
If you do make the effort to read the literature, and I am impressed that you are doing so, it would be best if you don't cherry pick a sentence that does not support your conclusions. The JAMA article is looking at a specific medicare quality measure as to the timing of prophylactic antibiotics. Medicare/Medicaid uses a 60 minute cutoff time to judge if the antibiotic was given at an appropriate time. This study suggests that the arbitrary 60 minute cutoff is not supported in their review of the literature. That is the reason for the word "timely" in the sentence you selected.
Here is the pertinent sentence regarding these authors' view of the value of prophylactic antibiotics:
The efficacy of prophylactic antibiotics in reducing SSI (surgical site infections) for major surgical procedures has been proven in clinical trials