VANCOUVER, British Columbia– One of Canada’s top research hospitals, The Ottawa Hospital, has presented results from its 2022 quality improvement study into patient outcomes after spinal surgery when using nasal photodisinfection for the prevention of surgical site infections (‘SSIs’). The study results were presented for the first time at the 2023 Annual Scientific Conference of the Canadian Spine Society in Quebec on Thursday 2 March, 2023.
The podium presentation showed that spine surgery patients treated with Ondine Biomedical’s Steriwave™ nasal photodisinfection had a 48% shorter mean length of stay in hospital compared with those not treated (LOS: 5.58 days vs. 10.67, P<0.001), and significantly fewer treated patients required antibiotics at 72hrs – 30 days post-surgery compared those not treated (12.8% vs. 23.1%, P<0.001). Additionally, there was 51% reduction in the rate of readmissions (3.4% vs. 7%, P<0.001) and 33% reduction in the rate of return to the emergency department (6.9% vs. 10.3%, P=0.005) in the intervention period compared to the pre-intervention period.
The Ottawa Hospital is a leading Canadian academic health sciences centre caring for 1.2 million patients across Eastern Ontario. It was awarded an innovation award from the Ontario Surgical Quality Improvement Network in January 2023 for the Steriwave study, which commenced in January 2022. Steriwave nasal photodisinfection was developed by Canadian life sciences company, Ondine Biomedical.
