Because of this, several countries have recently examined and reported their SSI experience. This issue of the Journal brings another article for consideration. This article describes the first year of the Dutch national surveillance of SSIs and risk factors. The Dutch study found age, preoperative length of stay, wound class, anesthesia score, and duration of surgery to be independently important risk factors for SSIs when all procedures were pooled together for analysis.
Risk factors vary by procedure.
SSIs are very costly to the healthcare system. The Dutch study found an attributable increased length of stay of 8.2 days for patients with SSIs. In any nation, an additional week or so of hospitalization is expensive. Unpublished NNIS data, 1997-1999. It should not be surprising that so many countries are attempting to monitor this infection.