Using Administrative Data to Determine Rates of Surgical Site Infections Following Spinal Fusion and Laminectomy Procedures.

Crocker, Alysha; Kornilo, Anna; Conly, John; Henderson, Elizabeth; Rennert-May, Elissa; Leal, Jenine

OBJECTIVE Surgical site infections (SSIs) are a serious and costly post-op complication. Generating SSI rates often requires labor-intensive methods, but increasing numbers of publications reported SSI rates using administrative data. METHODS Index laminectomy and spinal fusion procedures were identified using Canadian Classification of Health Interventions (CCI) procedure codes for inpatients and outpatients in the province of Alberta, Canada between 2008 and 2015. SSIs occurring in the year post-surgery were identified using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Canada (ICD-10-CA) diagnosis and CCI procedure codes indicative of post-op infection. Rates of SSIs and case characteristics were reported. RESULTS Over the eight-year study period, 21,222 index spinal procedures were identified of which 12,027 (56.7%) were laminectomy procedures, with 322 SSIs identified, an SSI rate of 2.7 per 100 procedures. Of the 9,195 (43.3%) fusion procedures, 298 were identified as an SSI, an SSI rate of 3.2 per 100 procedures. This study found SSI rates increased from 2008 and 2015, and rates were the highest in the 0-18 year age group. CONCLUSIONS The rates reported in this study were similar to published SSI rates using traditional surveillance methods, suggesting administrative data may be a viable method for reporting SSI rates following spinal procedures. Further work is needed to validate SSIs identified using administrative data by comparing to traditional surveillance.