THE EFFECT OF HYPEROXIA ON THE INCIDENCE OF SURGICAL SITE INFECTIONS IN COLORECTAL SURGERY PATIENTS

Surgical site infections represent a costly and debilitating complication of surgery. The most common surgical specialty associated with such infections is colorectal surgery. The recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from 2016-2018 endorse the use of 80% fraction of inspired oxygen intra-operatively and postoperatively for two to six hours to reduce SSIs. In continuation of the project by Christina Cross and Kyla Winkle, graduates of Kaiser Permanente School of Anesthesia class of 2021, a literature review was performed in addition to the creation of an educational module and algorithm. The authors disseminated the educational module and algorithm to the anesthesia providers at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles to improve the utilization of the WHO guidelines. The posttest results demonstrated a statistically significant difference in scores compared to the pretest (p