SSI and prophylactic antibiotics

[Becca M]

Hey! I’m hoping to get some insight into the process that your hospital has for administration of prophylactic antibiotics preoperatively. We’ve had a lot of issues this past year with SSIs, and one of the problems is timing of antibiotics. With them needing to be given within the 30-60 minute time frame, what process do you do to make sure this is happening? We typically have preop nurses hang the antibiotic, but it is started by the CRNA when the patient is about to roll back. So it’s roughly 15 minutes or so before cut time. Trying to figure out a process change to improve our times.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Antibiotics that need an hour to infuse are started in preop by the preop nurse. The OR nurse is responsible to keep them updated regarding delays. Antibiotics that need 30 minutes to infuse are started by the CRNA (and typically take less than 30 minutes...)