Farrah Pervaiz
Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology and National Institute of Heart Disease, Pakistan
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Clin Exp Cardiolog
Introduction: Amongst healthcare associated infections (HAIs), surgical site infections (SSIs) are a preventable cause of increased morbidity and mortality and are associated with substantial financial costs. SSI rates are an indicator of the quality of surgical and postoperative care, which necessitates the need for robust surveillance systems for these healthcare associated infections. Patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) are at a greater risk for infection due to their relatively older age and the presence of co-morbid conditions like diabetes mellitus and obesity. Objective: To establish the adult cardiothoracic surgical site infections registry to determine adult surgical site infection (SSI) rates and study impact of quality improvement initiatives on SSI rates. Methods: The Adult Cardiothoracic SSI registry was developed at Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology and National Institute of Heart Disease, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Monthly SSI rates were monitored for both CABG and valvular heart surgeries inclusive of chest and leg SSIs instituted to control the increased SSI rate in October 2014 after a multidisciplinary approach. Results: A total number of 1341 cardiac surgeries were carried out and the cumulative SSI rate was 1.7% (n=23) for a period of one year i.e. August 2014 to August 2015. The SSI rate for chest infections was 22% (n=6) and for leg wound (harvest site) infections was 78% (n=17). There was an increase in SSI rate 5% (n=04) during October 2014. After process improvements the rate declined to 1% in November 2014 and has remained less than or equal to 2% as of August 2015. Conclusion: A high SSI rate was investigated and multi-modal process improvements and infection control measures were implemented, leading to a decrease in SSI rate from 4% to 1%.
Farrah Pervaiz has completed her Master’s in Public Health from Quaid e Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan in 2012. Although, she is a Clinician at Genes, she possesses a special interest in cardiac research especially clinical outcomes based research in order to make everyday medicine more up to date and beneficial to the patients. She is currently working as Director Research and Development department AFIC/NIHD Rawalpindi. She is the Founder Member of Research Department and Institutional Ethical Review Board. She is also supervising Master’s thesis and has been a Research Coordinator for national and international clinical trials. Her research work is extensively disseminated through more than 50 peer reviewed publications in both national and international scientific journals. Her thesis work has been recently published in British Medical Journal and has been an author of many national publications.
Email: farrahpervaiz@yahoo.com
