Operating Room

In the healthcare setting, there is an increasing need for a self-donning surgical gown that healthcare personnel can don without the need for any assistance. Also, in the context of crisis management for the Ebola virus and other severe infectious diseases, use of a gown that can be donned and removed quickly and safely as infection protection to prevent transmission to the environment is more important than ever.

A new type of wound dressing could improve thousands of people's lives, by preventing them from developing infections. The dressing, a type of compression held in place by a bandage, uses an antibacterial substance formed from the shells of crustaceans like shrimps. It is described in a paper published in the May issue of Radiation Physics and Chemistry.

A hospital's surgical services department represents one of the most sizable challenges to infection prevention and control. Surgery also presents a significant risk to patients, and together, the operating room should be on the infection preventionist's radar for healthcare-associated infection (HAI) mitigation and elimination. Research indicates that SSIs are the most common type of hospital-acquired infection. SSIs account for 20 percent of all infections that occur in the hospital setting. Although most patients recover from an SSI without any long-term consequences, they are at a two- to 11-fold increased risk of mortality. Furthermore, SSIs are the most costly of all hospital-acquired infections. With an annual estimated overall cost of $3 billion to $5 billion in the U.S., SSIs are associated with a nearly 10-day increased length of stay and an increase of $20,000 in the cost of hospitalization per admission. As many as 60 percent of SSIs are considered to be preventable. Now that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services no longer pays additional amounts for the cost of treating conditions acquired in a hospital, SSIs have been targeted not only to improve clinical quality, but also to protect hospital reimbursement.