PHOENIX – More and more attention is being paid to preventing healthcare acquired infections (HAIs) in the hospital setting, and the role of HAIs in cardiothoracic surgery is a particlularly important area of focus.
“The good news is that cardiothoracic surgeons are really good at preventing infections. There’s been a lot of pressure over the past many years to report infections after cardiothoracic surgery, and so they’ve gotten a lot of things right,” Dr. Emily Landon said in a video interview at the annual meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
“However, patients that undergo cardiothoracic surgery are still at risk of the infections that plague everyone in hospitals ... all of these are a problem based on whatever the hospital’s current situation is.”
Dr. Landon, who is the medical director of antimicrobial stewardship and infection control at University of Chicago Medicine, Chicago, discussed how cardiothroacic surgeons can maintain their own good outcomes and how they can have a postive impact outside the OR on protecting their patients after surgery.
Dr. Landon reported having no financial disclosures.