Sustainability of a Surgical Quality Improvement Program at Hospitals in Ethiopia

The results of the lasting impact of Lifebox’s surgical infection reduction program - Clean Cut - in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Surgery.

In this quality improvement study, behavior changes associated with a multimodal surgical quality improvement program were persistent and, in some cases, continued to improve.

This research details the results of a follow up audit conducted at seven hospitals in a cohort of 3,385 surgical patients six to eighteen months after completion of the Lifebox Clean Cut program. The results demonstrate that compared to baseline, hospitals maintained improvements in compliance with all six program infection prevention standards, indicating the lasting behavior changes achieved by Clean Cut.

Authors: Nichole Starr, MD, MPH; Maia R. Nofal, MD, MPH; Natnael Gebeyehu, MD et. al.