The Korean Surgical Site Infection Surveillance System Report, 2018

Background: The incidence of surgical site infection (SSI) after 20 operative procedures was accessed via a web-based surveillance of the Korean National Healthcare-associated Infections Surveillance (KONIS) system. Methods: A total of 213 hospitals participated in the surveillance system. All operative procedures were prospectively monitored to determine whether SSI could occur in each hospital. All data was collected using a real-time web-based reporting system. Results: From April 2018 through March 2019, SSI surveillance data for 130,345 operative procedures were collected from 213 institutions. SSI occurred in 1.06% of cases. With regard to surgical procedures, SSI rates were 3.16% in colon surgery, 2.26% in rectal surgery, 2.38% in neck surgery, 2.17% in gastric surgery, 1.64% in appendectomy, 0.40% in vaginal hysterectomy, 0.39% in cesarean section, 0.37% in laminectomy, 0.34% in abdominal hysterectomy, 0.33% in cholecystectomy, 0.31% in thoracic surgery, and 0.0% in prostate surgery. Implantrelated SSI rates were 2.67% in ventricular shunt operation, 2.00% in coronary artery bypass graft with both incisions, 1.47% in craniotomy, 1.36% in spinal fusion, 1.12% in cardiac surgery, 1.11% in coronary artery bypass graft with chest only incision, 0.55% in hip prosthesis and 0.29% in knee prosthesis. Conclusion: Between 2014 and 2018, there was an overall decrease in SSI from 1.56% to 1.06%, according to KONIS. Maintaining surveillance of SSI is essential, as it can decrease SSI numbers through feedback to the surgeon and infection control person.ope