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Article: The microbiology of surgical site infections: understanding where the bugs come from.(INFECTION PROTECTION)
- Article from:
- Healthcare Purchasing News
- Article date:
- December 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Healthcare Purchasing News. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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According to recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics, more than 40 million inpatient and 30 million outpatient surgical procedures are performed annually in the United States. (1,2) Depending on a number of factors such as surgery type, wound classification, American Society of Anesthesiology (ASA) score, surgery time as well as a long list of thoroughly-researched patient, process and structure variables, surgical site infection (SSI) rates may range from 0.1% for most ocular surgeries (3) to 20% and higher for certain abdominal (4) and cardiovascular (5) procedures. Many of these postoperative infections, at a minimum, increase the hospital length of ...