Assessment of the Surgical Site Infection Rate Detected Through Post-discharge Vigilance at a Medium-sized Hospital in Såo Paulo

APIC 41st Annual Educational Conference & Interna professional compliance is low, averaging 40%. Measuring this compliance and identifying weaknesses may guide actions attempting to change the prevalent culture. PROJECT: Objective: To assess Results from an observational audit for hand hygiene at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a medium-sized general private hospital in Sao Paulo. Methodology: The analysis was carried out at two ICUs with 22 and 23 beds, one Cardiac ICU (CICU) with 12 beds, one Pediatric ICU (PICU) with 12 beds and one Neonatal ICU (NICU) with 10 beds, from Jan/11 to Jun/13. The audit was performed by an Infection Preventionist (IP), through a check list contemplating the 5 timings proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO), with visits of at least 20 minutes. RESULTS: 3340 opportunities of hand hygienewere seen in all ICUs, with an overall compliance of 67.5% (2253). As per Table 1, timings with the highest and lowest compliance were the third and the first, respectively. ICU with the lowest compliance was CICU (59.6%) and the highest compliance was at Neonatal (77.3%) ICU. The most used product was alcohol gel, compared to water and chlorhexidine.