REDUCING SURGICAL SITE INFECTION RATES IN CAESAREAN SECTIONS: A CYCLE OF IMPROVEMENT IN A HOSPITAL IN NORTHEASTERN BRAZIL
Surgical Wound Infection, Cesarean Section, Quality Improvement, Quality of Health Care, Patient Safety
Introduction: Surgical site infection is an infection resulting from surgical procedures, with or without implant placement in hospitalized patients or those who have undergone outpatient care. Among these infections are infections that occur after cesarean delivery that can lead to puerperal complications and/or even maternal death, and can occur in at least 80% of women undergoing cesarean delivery within approximately 15 days after the surgical procedure. Objective: to reduce the rate of surgical site infection of cesarean sections in a state maternity hospital in the Northeast through an improvement project. Method: This is a quasi-experimental, before-and-after study, without a control group, with a quantitative approach, with the implementation of an improvement cycle, considering the following phases: identification of the opportunity for improvement, analysis of the causes of the opportunity for improvement, definition of the criteria or quality indicators to be measured and the participatory design of the interventions, measurement of the baseline, implementation of the interventions and reassessment of the indicators. Data collection will be carried out in 60 medical records before and after the interventions. Data analysis will be performed through absolute and relative frequencies and the absolute and relative improvement of the indicators will be measured, considering a significance of 5%. Partial results: The analysis of the causes of opportunity and improvement pointed out the main barriers involved in the quality of care aimed at cesarean delivery.