Surgical safety solution to improve patient safety in caesarean procedures

Health Care-Associated Infections (HCAI) is the most frequent adverse event in health-care delivery worldwide. Up to 16% of HCAI are Surgical Site Infections (SSI). Managing the risk of SSI is complex. Many patients are affected by SSI each year, leading to significant mortality, morbidity and financial losses for health systems. Caesarean section deliveries are an important surgical procedure that is used to improve both maternal and fetal outcomes in complicated pregnancies. In recent times however the convenience of the surgery for both mother and surgeon has resulted in an increasing global trend of C-section deliveries which according to the world health organization has now reached pandemic proportions. The nature of the surgery makes it a high risk procedure and the incidence of infection have been increasing in both well and under-resourced countries. Since the entire process is not limited to a single hospital department, a multi-disciplinary approach is needed to minimize the risk of infections. For this study a surgical care pathway was introduced as part of a performance improvement project to a private hospital in South Africa which resulted in C-section infection rates decreasing from 5.120.82% to 0.230.15% (p<0.0001).