Surgical Infection Prevention: Success Stories VIRGINIA Collaborative Increases Surgical Infection Prevention Efforts in Virginia Twenty-two hospitals in Virginia increased prevention measures for surgical site infections in just over a year through their participation with the Virginia Health Quality Center in the Surgical Infection Prevention (SIP) Collaborative. Between June 2003 and March 2004, hospital teams implemented, tested and tracked improvements in antibiotic prophylaxis timing indicators proven to decrease surgical site infections and the development of resistant strains. The result: improving care to save lives. The teams involved in the Collaborative made the following improvements in their selected pilot populations: More than 20% improvement in the proportion of surgical patients receiving prophylactic antibiotics within one hour prior to surgical incision. More than 9% improvement in the proportion of surgical patients with prophylactic antibiotics discontinued within 24 hours after surgery end time. The Collaborative was led by the Virginia Health Quality Center (VHQC), the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Virginia , under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The VHQC continues to assist hospitals in improving the quality of care through a second year-long Collaborative that began in June 2004 and addresses surgical infections as well as other important health issues. For more information, contact: Debbie Fox at dfox@vhqc.org or (804) 289-5320. This material was prepared by the Virginia Health Quality Center , the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Virginia , under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents presented do not necessarily reflect CMS policy.

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