Abstract
Introduction: Infection following TKR is a catastrophic complication. Few authors have highlighted the need for screening of patients (nose, axilla and groin) before TKR. Despite the fact that some of the centers in UK now routinely perform preoperative screening for TKR patients the overall incidence of surgical site infection in the year 2004 was 2.9%.
Methods and Materials: We introduced a new admission policy and SSI surveillance protocol for TKR patients in the year 2004 at our center. According to the new admission policy all TKR patients who were preoperatively screened were admitted into a clean elective ward. Care was taken not to admit anybody with positive infection screening in that ward, irrespective of the diagnosis. Further we also introduced a new policy of SSI surveillance according toNINSS protocol carried out by dedicated trained nurses.
Results and conclusions: Following the introduction of these policies our surgical site infection has come down to 0% in the year 2004–5 in contrast to 1.7% in the year 2002–3. These results showed that simple measures like having dedicated infection free clean wards and dedicated trained surveillance nurses can significantly reduce the infection rate following TKR
Correspondence should be addressed to Mr Tim Wilton, BASK at the Royal College of Surgeons, 35–43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE.
