Prewarming a patient prior to surgery has been shown to be important, but using a forced-air warming (FAW) system increases the likelihood of a surgical site infection (SSI), according to a recent study.
The retrospective study, which analyzed data from the CDC’s healthcare-associated infection prevalence 2018 survey, found that of 320 pathogen isolate samples collected in the OR of procedures employing an FAW system, 42.5% were higher than the minimally accepted pathogen levels (Ann Med