Web Exclusive... Making Surgery Safer, One Patient at a Time

By: Kelly Griffin; October 2006 Source: AARP Bulletin Date Posted: 2006-10-13 11:43:00-04:00

While surgical patients' biggest fear may be dying on the operating table, many other serious threats loom during recovery. In hospitals, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) account for an estimated 2 million patient infections, 90,000 deaths and $4.5 billion in excess health care costs annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Fortunately, contracting pneumonia, getting a surgical wound infection or developing a potentially deadly blood clot within a hospital environment can be preventable. Simple policies and procedures have been proven to reduce the risk of surgical complications, including the most feared complication of all, death.

For example, giving patients an antibiotic one hour before surgery reduces the risk of a wound infection. But in hospitals around the country, only three out of four surgery patients actually get antibiotics at the right time.

To help surgery patients ensure that they receive appropriate care in the hospital, AARP has teamed up with the National Partnership for Women and Families to develop a tip sheet, "Steps to Safer Surgery." The tip sheet provides a list of questions that patients should ask doctors and nurses before surgery in order to prevent problems after surgery, such as: "If I need antibiotics before surgery, when will I receive them and for how long?" or "If I take medicine for heart disease, should I keep taking it before surgery?"

"We intend to explore other ways of engaging patients in their surgical care and in other aspects of their health care in the coming year," said John Rother, Group Executive Officer for Policy and Strategy at AARP. "But providing this information is an important first step in making surgery safer, one patient at a time."

It's all part of a new national quality improvement initiative called the Surgical Care Improvement Project, or SCIP—supported by AARP, the federal government, hospitals, physician and nursing organizations, and other consumer groups—with one goal: to reduce the number of preventable surgical complications by 25 percent by 2010.

SCIP is focused on the most common serious complications that can occur after major surgery—infections, blood clots and adverse cardiac and respiratory events. Hospitals that are participating in SCIP will collect data on the percentage of patients who receive the proper care, and this information will be available to patients on a government website called Hospital Compare.

According to Rother, helping consumers become more informed and engaged is a crucial step in making hospitals accountable and ensuring better outcomes.

"We endorse the use of standardized measures and we recognize the importance of accountability," said Rother. "But we also know that when patients become active partners, health outcomes are better. Arming patients with knowledge will help ensure that they avoid infection, get the right medicine and take all possible steps to get the best results."