Question: One of the quality measures reported by hospitals to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services which is published on the Hospital Compare website is statistics on "surgery patients who were given an antibiotic at the right time (within one hour of surgery) to help prevent infection." Answer the following questions to reflect on your understanding of this quality measure. In a minimum of 250 words address the following:

Why is it clinically important for patients to receive antibiotics prior to surgery?

In regards to clinical documentation in the health record that would be reviewed to report on hospital performance of this quality measure, which portion of the record would provide the most accurate details to confirm the administration and time of administration of antibiotics prior to surgery?

If hospital a consistently scores low on this measure, what does this indicate?

If a hospital is scoring low on this quality measure, which clinical quality management process could be used to help the hospital understand why the performance is low, formulate a plan to improve its score, implement the plan, and evaluate results of this measure in the future?