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Surveillance for Surgical Site Infections: The Uses of Antibiotic Exposure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Deborah S. Yokoe  and
Richard Platt
Deborah S. Yokoe*
Affiliation:
Channing Laboratory and Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
Richard Platt
Affiliation:
Channing Laboratory and Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical Schooland Harvard Community Health Plan, Boston, Massachusetts
*
180 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115
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Abstract

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Conventional methods of surveillance for surgical site infections are resource intensive, thus creating an incentive to develop simpler alternatives. Antibiotic exposure may serve as a satisfactory marker for a physician’s belief that infection is present and, therefore, may be a more efficient, and perhaps more accurate, measure than identification of an explicit diagnosis in the medical record. Surveillance strategies that use antibiotic exposure may provide resource-efficient adjuncts for surveillance of surgical site infections or be used in selected circumstances as substitutes for conventional surveillance methods.

Type
Readers’ Forum
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 15 , Issue 11 , November 1994 , pp. 717 - 723
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1994 

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