Extended application of statistical process control-quantitative risk assessment techniques to monitor surgical site infection rates

Surgical wound infections are major challenges affecting the health and even the life of patients subjected to invasive operations in hospitals. Healthcare providers should ensure the appropriate quality control of surgical site infection (SSI). World Health Organization (WHO) provides a comprehensive global database record of SSI. Monitoring of the trend of SSI rate and magnitude using statistical process control (SPC) tools would deliver useful information about the previous, current, and expected behavior and pattern of the inspected quality characteristic. The degree of compliance with good practices guidelines and rules (GXP) and the improvement achieved or required might be assessed and quantified using Shewhart or process-behavior trending charts. The following study demonstrates the application of SPC analysis using commercial software packages in the assessment of SSI in selected cases of countries from the WHO dataset.