Abstract
Background: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the costliest hospital-associated type of infection. SSIs persist due to non-adherence to surgical prophylaxis antimicrobial administration and redosing guidelines.|Purpose: The purpose of this quality improvement project was to determine the impact of a prophylactic antibiotic re-dosing protocol on surgical site infection rates for adult patients undergoing invasive surgical intervention.|Methods: A prospective feasibility study design was used to evaluate the impact of a prophylactic antibiotic re-dosing protocol in a surgical services department. Surgical site infection rates and protocol adherence among surgical services staff were tracked over 8 weeks with comparison to baseline rates.|Result: The sample included 326 surgical cases. All patients who required antibiotic prophylaxis (N= 286) received proper administration All cases requiring redosing (N= 58) received timely antibiotic redosing. While the redosing antibiotic protocol was in use, the SSI rate was zero compared to an 18.18% SSI in the eight weeks preceding the study.