2010 Preventing Complications From Surgery
Blood clots in the veins and infections are two potential complications from surgery. Hospitals can reduce the risk of wound infection after surgery by making sure patients get the right medicines at the right time on the day of surgery. Hospitals can reduce the risk of blood clots by making sure that patients get preventive treatments.
The measures below show how often hospitals provided the recommended care to prevent complications from surgery.
Note: For all of these rates, be careful when drawing conclusions; small numbers of patients may reduce the reliability of the results.
Understanding Recommended Care Rates: The Recommended Care Rates show how often hospitals provided the recommended care for preventing complications from surgery.
What do the fractions mean? The denominator (the bottom number) represents all those patients who were medically eligible to receive the recommended care. The numerator (the top number) represents those patients who actually received the care.
For example: Prophylactic antibiotics within 1 hour prior to surgery: 80%; 8/10. This means that 10 patients were medically eligible to receive prophylactic antibiotics within one hour before surgery and 8 patients actually received them. “0/0” means that no patients were medically eligible to receive that particular treatment.
Acknowledgement: The table format, measure descriptions and definition of “Achievable Benchmark” were developed by the New Hampshire-based Foundation for Healthy Communities. The Northeast Healthcare Quality Foundation provided the data analysis. The Vermont Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration expresses its gratitude to both organizations.
To view prior year reports, please click here.