SURVEILLANCE FOR SURGICAL SITE INFECTIONS - THE USES OF ANTIBIOTIC EXPOSURE

Conventional methods of surveillance for surgical site infections are resource intensive, thus creating an incentive to develop simpler alte rnatives. Antibiotic exposure may serve as a satisfactory marker for a physician's belief that infection is present and, therefore, may be a more efficient, and perhaps more accurate, measure than identificatio n of an explicit diagnosis in the medical record. Surveillance strateg ies that use antibiotic exposure may provide resource-efficient adjunc ts for surveillance of surgical site infections or be used in selected circumstances as substitutes for conventional surveillance methods (I nfect Control Hosp Epidemiol 1994;15:717-723).