Definition
Infections acquired in the hospital by a surgical patient at the surgical site. SSI may be of three types:
Superficial incisional
Deep incisional
Organ or space infection
Goal
Double the number of days between SSIs within 13 months.
Data Collection Plan
Create a system to capture data prospectively on 100 percent of patients in the pilot population (one surgical type, e.g., colon resections or total joint replacements). This may require revising run charts continuously. Use the date of surgery for counting cases, not the date when infection was reported; for example, if an SSI is reported for a patient who had surgery on April 1, and the next SSI reported is for a patient who had surgery on April 10, that is 9 days between SSIs. As infections are reduced, the days between increases.
