Surgical Infection Prevention: Success Stories MONTANA Montana hospitals improve by participating in a surgical infection prevention collaborative Montana hospitals improved surgical infection prevention practices in just over a year and a half by participating in the Mountain-Pacific Quality Health Foundation’s Surgical Infection Prevention project. Beginning October 2002, several Montana hospital and physician teams implemented, tested and tracked changes in surgical antibiotic administration for patients undergoing selected cardiac and vascular; hip and knee; and colon and hysterectomy procedures. The result is improved care that saves lives. As of June 2004, Montana hospitals and physicians made significant progress increasing from 66.67 percent to 72.73 percent the proportion of surgical patients receiving prophylactic antibiotic within one hour prior to surgical incision and increasing from 51.82 percent to 64.47 percent the proportion of surgical patients with prophylactic antibiotics discontinued within 24 hours after surgery end time. These two practices are important factors in effective infection prevention. Prolonged antibiotic usage has been associated with the development of resistant strains of bacteria. The project also showed Montana hospitals and physicians were able to maintain their high rate of correct antibiotic selection for surgical patients. The Surgical Infection Prevention project was led by Mountain-Pacific Quality Health Foundation under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Mountain-Pacific Quality Health Foundation is continuing to assist hospitals improve quality of care. For more information, contact QIO Media Contact – Jacquie Peterson at 1-800-497-8232 x5857 or jpeterson@mpqhf.org. This material was prepared by Mountain-Pacific Quality Health Foundation , the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Montana , under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents do not necessarily reflect CMS policy.

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