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Pre-operative Planner: Pre-surgical Baths in the Battle Against SSIs
Training your staff - and your patients - to perform CHG baths.
Denice Morrison
Publish Date: August 11, 2019   |  Tags:   Infection Prevention
DUSK AND DAWN Patients should take a CHG bath the night before and the morning of surgery.   |   North Kansas City (Mo.) Hospital

The best defense for battling surgical site infections is a good offense. And part of a good offensive game plan is to make sure your OR nurses understand the importance of the chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) bath in fighting SSIs.

Pre-surgical baths using an antibacterial product have proven to decrease SSIs. We have a protocol that patients have a CHG bath the night before surgery, then again on the morning of surgery. When we see our outpatients in a pre-surgery clinic, we educate them on how to perform the CHG bath at home. While we’re proud of our low infection rates, we continue to prioritize inpatient baths, as well as the accurate and consistent documentation of those baths.

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