Hospital Achieves Significantly Lower Infection Rate for Hip Replacement

A new report on infection rates from the New York State Department of Health singles out Hospital for Special Surgery as the only hospital in New York State with a statistically lower rate of surgical site infection (SSI) compared to the state average for hip replacement/revision surgery.

“We emphasize infection control as a best practice,” said Thomas P. Sculco, MD, surgeon–in-chief of Hospital for Special Surgery, “and strive to maintain it at every level of patient care – from washing hands to a clean and safe environment for our patients in the operating room and the entire hospital.”

The report comparisons also found that hospitals performing fewer than 50 hip replacements/revisions per year had a significantly higher risk for SSI than others. Out of the 171 hospitals in New York State, which collectively performed 23,611 hip replacements/revisions last year, Special Surgery performed almost 3,700, the state’s highest surgical volume coupled with a significantly lower SSI rate when compared to the state average.

“At Hospital for Special Surgery, we believe that infection control is everyone’s responsibility,” said Louis A. Shapiro, president and CEO. “Efforts to prevent infection are woven into the fabric of this organization and it takes everyone’s contributions, from surgeons and nurses to housekeepers and technicians, to achieve success.”

New York state has one of the strictest regulatory and surveillance systems for hospitals in the country. The law mandates that New York’s 186 hospitals document and report certain hospital acquired infections to the New York State Department of Health. The report issued today says key goals are to provide the public with fair, accurate and reliable infection data as well as to support the improvement of infection control activities in hospitals. Today is the second year for the report, but the first to include SSI of hip replacement/revision surgery data.