“In addition to decreasing surgical site infections, the project raised awareness of the importance of preventing infections, increased communication and teamwork at multiple levels and across numerous services and departments, and also promoted antimicrobial stewardship” ~BC Patient Safety & Quality Council
Wow, we couldn’t be more excited by this news!
Dr. Elizabeth Bryce and her team at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) have been awarded the BC Quality Awards in the Getting Better category for their work implementing MRSAid Photodisinfection System and body wipes into their perioperative center.
This award is given to an initiative focused on improving care for acute illness or injury. Between June 2011 and May 2012, the team at VGH decolonized the noses of 5,300 patients using MRSAid. This procedure was done just prior to surgery, destroying any harmful bacteria that resides in the patient’s nose, and thus reducing their risk of developing an infection after surgery.
“It takes less than five minutes and it’s not painful,” said Dr. Wong, one of the dedicated team members at VGH. “Photodisinfection has several distinct advantages. It is not subject to any type of drug resistance and it doesn’t develop drug resistance.”
We did it! After an intense year-long quality improvement project at Vancouver General Hospital, we’ve very excited to announce the successful results of this project.
Here are some highlights of the data:
Surgical site infections were reduced by 39%
Vancouver General Hospital saved ~$1.9 million
Readmissions due to surgical site infections decreased from 4 to 1.25 cases/month
553 patient bed days were freed up
138 more surgeries could be performed
In this project, patients were treated with MRSAid in their nose and given chlorhexidine body wipes prior to surgery. This was done in an effort to reduce the patient’s bacterial load and decrease their risk of developing surgical site infections.
Today is a very proud day for all of us. We can’t thank the amazing team at Vancouver General Hospital enough for their willingness to champion innovation and change. The results of this project mark a global first for photodisinfection as a non-antibiotic approach to reducing surgical site infections.
We have a very busy week ahead of us, so please stay tuned to this blog as we’ll be bringing you a lot more updates over the next few days.
Our MRSAid™ Photodisinfection procedure has been well received at VGH and represents a promising approach to improve patient safety in other healthcare facility settings… Photodisinfection (is) ideal for hospital settings as it eliminates the need for patient compliance as it can be administered just prior to surgery- Carolyn Cross, Chairman and CEO of Ondine.
Less than a year ago, Vancouver General Hospital implemented the MRSAid™ Photodisinfection System as part of a year-long infection control Quality Improvement Project. Since then, we are very pleased to announce that we have treated over 2,500 patients, making this one of the largest PDT studies in the world. The project is being undertaken with the objective of reducing the incidence of surgical site infections in selected surgical populations.
Many people do not know that the nose is the primary site for bacteria colonization. The average person touches their nose more than 100 times a day, and if they touch their nose and then touch their surgical site, they are at risk of giving themselves an infection that was completely preventable. Many studies have demonstrated a significant reduction in surgical site infections after nasal decolonization of both Staph and MRSA. It is therefore critical to continue the development of non-antibiotic treatments that eliminate potentially deadly bacteria from the nose.
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