Surgical site infection following vascular or general surgery

A surgical site is the location of the incision made to access the part of the body being surgically removed, repaired or replaced. A surgical site infection is an infection of the skin and/or tissue in or around a surgical wound site that occurs after surgery. This measure evaluates general and vascular surgical procedures.

A surgical site infection is a potential complication of any surgery that can be minor or more serious. While some patients have higher risks than others, some of these infections  may be preventable. 

About this measure

This measure tracks surgical patients who experienced surgical site infection after their surgery, based on a sampling methodology developed by the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP).

The rate of general and vascular surgery patients who develop an infection at the surgical site is expressed as an odds ratio. This reports the estimated odds of an event happening at Northwestern Memorial compared to the estimated odds of that event happening in all hospitals in the ACS NSQIP database. A number of 1.0 means the hospital is performing as expected. A number less than 1.0 means the hospital is performing better than expected. A number greater than 1.0 means the hospital is performing worse than expected.

Note: While Northwestern Memorial results may be higher or lower than ACS NSQIP comparisons each period, our most recent performance is considered by ACS NSQIP to be "as expected" for this surgical outcome.  Given the number of patients in the measure, the results are statistically similar than expected.

 In this case, a lower number is better.