Comparison of patient telephone survey with traditional surveillance and monthly physician questionnaires in monitoring surgical wound infections.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the utility of patient telephone surveys in further improving the detection of surgical wound infections (SWIs) postdischarge in the setting of ongoing traditional surveillance system and monthly physician surveys.

DESIGN

Prospective surveillance study of randomly selected patients undergoing surgery in inpatient or outpatient settings.

SETTING

Tertiary care suburban hospital.

RESULTS

Five hundred one patients were randomly selected for telephone contact, of whom 189 (38%) were successfully contacted after three attempts. Eighteen (9.5%) patients reported one or more signs or symptoms of possible SWI. However, none of these patients required antibiotic therapy, was hospitalized with an SWI, or reported by his or her physician (based on the monthly questionnaire) to have had an SWI. Total time spent contacting patients was 47 hours and 48 minutes, or 15 minutes per each successful telephone contact.

CONCLUSIONS

Patient telephone surveys as conducted in this study were inefficient and failed to substantially improve the rate of detection of SWIs over traditional surveillance system and monthly physician questionnaires.