Surgical Care/Surgical Infection Prevention
  1. Research shows that surgery patients who get antibiotics within the hour before their operation are less likely to get wound infections. Getting an antibiotic earlier, or after surgery begins, is not as effective. This shows how often hospitals make sure surgery patients get antibiotics at the right time.

  2. Certain antibiotics are recommended to help prevent wound infection for particular types of surgery. This measure looks at how often hospital surgical patients get the appropriate antibiotic in order to prevent a surgical wound infection.

  3. While the likelihood of infection after surgery can be reduced by giving patients preventative antibiotics, taking these antibiotics for more than 24 hours after routine surgery is usually not necessary and can increase the risk of side effects such as stomach aches, serious types of diarrhea, and antibiotic resistance (when antibiotics are used too much, they will not work anymore.)

  4. Certain types of surgery can increase the risk of blood clots forming in the veins. This is because patients don’t move much during and, usually, after some surgeries. Venous thrombosis is a condition in which a blood clot (thrombus) forms in a vein. This clot can limit blood flow, causing swelling, redness and pain. Most commonly, clots occur in the legs, thighs, or pelvis. If a part or all of the clot breaks off from where it was formed, it can travel through the veins. The part that breaks off is called an embolus. If the embolus lodges in the lung, it is called a pulmonary embolism, a serious condition that can cause death.

  5. Treatment(s) to prevent blood clots must be given at the right time to prevent blood clots forming after selected surgeries.



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Heart Attacks
  1. ACE Inhibitors and ARBs are medicines used to treat people with heart failure.

  2. Chewing an aspirin as soon as symptoms of a heart attack begin may help reduce the severity of the attack.

  3. Following a heart attack, continued use of aspirin may help reduce the risk of another heart attack.

  4. Beta blockers are a type of medicine that is used to lower blood pressure, treat chest pain and heart failure, and to prevent a heart attack.

  5. Beta blockers relieve stress on your heart by slowing the heart rate and reducing the force with which your heart muscles contract to pump blood. If you have a heart attack, you should get a prescription for a beta blocker before you leave the hospital.

  6. Thrombolitics are medicines that can help dissolve blood clots in blood vessels and improve blood flow to the heart.


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Heart Failure
  1. ACE inhibitors and ARBs are medicine used to treat patients with heart failure and are particulaly beneficial in those patients with heart failure and decreased function on the left side of the heart.

  2. Proper treatment for heart failure depends on what area of the heart is affected. An important test is to check how your heart is pumping, called the "left ventricular function assessment."

  3. Heart failure is a chronic condition that can result in shortness of breath, dizziness, and fatigue. Before you leave the hospital, staff should provide you with information to help you manage your symptoms.

  4. Smoking increases your risk of devloping blood clots and heart disease which can lead to a heart attack, heart failure or stroke. It is important that you receive information to help you quit smoking before your leave the hospital.


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Pneumonia
  1. The pneumococcal vaccine may help you prevent, or lower the risk of complications of pneumonia caused by bacteria. It may also help you prevent future infections. Patients with pneumonia should be asked if they have been vaccinated recently for pneumonia and, if not, should be given the vaccine.

  2. Antibiotics are used to treat adults with pneumonia caused by bacteria. Early treatment with antibiotics can cure bacterial pneumonia and reduce the possibility of complications.

  3. Pneumonia can lower the oxygen in your blood because the air spaces in your lungs fill with mucus. The oxygen you breathe does not get into your bloodstream. It is important that the amount of oxygen in your blood be measured within 24 hours of arriving at the hospital to see if you need oxygen therapy.

  4. Smoking damages your lungs and can make it hard to breath. Smoking increases your chances of getting pneumonia or other chronic lung diseases like emphysema and bronchitis. Smoking is also linked to lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke, and can cause premature death. It is important for you to get information to help you quit smoking before you leave the hospital. Quitting may reduce your chance of getting pneumonia again.

  5. If pneumonia is caused by bacteria, hospitals will treat the infection with antibiotics. Different bacteria are treated with different antibiotics.

  6. Hospitals should check to make sure that pneumonia patients, particularly those who are age 50 or older, get a flu shot during flu season to protect them from another lung infection and to help prevent the spread of influenza.

  7. A blood culture is a test that can help your health care provider identify which bacteria may have caused your pneumonia, and which antibiotic should be prescribed. A blood culture is not always needed, but for patients who are first seen in the hospital emergency department, it is important for the accuracy of the test that blood culture be conducted before any antibiotics are started.

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