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Review
. 2020;10(3):233-241.
doi: 10.1007/s40140-020-00403-8. Epub 2020 Jul 17.

Perioperative Infection Transmission: the Role of the Anesthesia Provider in Infection Control and Healthcare-Associated Infections

Archit Sharma  1 , Patrick G Fernandez  2 , John P Rowlands  3 , Matthew D Koff  4 , Randy W Loftus  1
Affiliations
Review

Perioperative Infection Transmission: the Role of the Anesthesia Provider in Infection Control and Healthcare-Associated Infections

Archit Sharma et al. Curr Anesthesiol Rep. 2020.

Abstract

Purpose of review: This review aims to highlight key factors in the perioperative environment that contribute to transmission of infectious pathogens, leading to healthcare-associated infection. This knowledge will provide anesthesia providers the tools to optimize preventive measures, with the goal of improved patient and provider safety.

Recent findings: Over the past decade, much has been learned about the epidemiology of perioperative pathogen transmission. Patients, providers, and the environment serve as reservoirs of origin that contribute to infection development. Ongoing surveillance of pathogen transmission among these reservoirs is essential to ensure effective perioperative infection prevention.

Summary: Recent work has proven the efficacy of a strategic approach for perioperative optimization of hand hygiene, environmental cleaning, patient decolonization, and intravascular catheter design and handling improvement protocols. This work, proven to generate substantial reductions in surgical site infections, can also be applied to aide prevention of SARS-CoV-2 spread in the COVID-19 era.

Keywords: Anesthesia work area; Bacterial transmission; COVID-19; Hand hygiene; Nosocomial infections; Surgical site infection.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of InterestArchit Sharma declares that he has no conflicts of interest. Patrick G. Fernandez declares that he has no conflicts of interest. John P. Rowlands declares that he has no conflicts of interest. Matthew D. Koff is a minor shareholder of RDB Bioinformatics (Coralville, Iowa, USA). Randy W. Loftus is supported by the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, and has previously received grant funding from Sage Medical and Draeger; has served as a guest speaker at education meetings sponsored by Kenall (Indigo-Clean, AORN) and BBraun (APIC); is founder a shareholder of RDB Bioinformatics, which owns OR PathTrac; and is a co-inventor on two pending patents (PCT/US2017/026557 and 62/682,267 - Method and system for differentiating more pathogenic S. aureus Strains among commonly isolated intraoperative multilocus sequence type).

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
A figure displaying different levels and frequency of patient-provider-environmental interactions for anesthesia providers during routine, elective surgery. The figure represents interactions during an elective surgical case of approximately 3 h in duration. Each line represents one provider-patient-environmental interaction. Red lines represent the anesthesia team, blue lines represent the surgical team, and black lines represent the circulating nurse. This depicts a high task density work environment for anesthesia providers (picture published with permission from John P. Rowlands, MD)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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