Open Journal of Organ Transplant Surgery, 2014, 4, 15-22 Published Online May 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojots http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojots.2014.42003 How to cite this paper: Nair, N., Gongora, E., Sareyyupoglu, B., Collier, I., Alvarado, S., Nasar, A. and Zehr, K. (2014) Atten- tion to Details Reduces Infection Rates in Patients with Continuous Flow Pumps. Open Journal of Organ Transplant Surgery, 4, 15-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojots.2014.42003 Attention to Details Reduces Infection Rates in Patients with Continuous Flow Pumps Nandini Nair 1,2* , Enrique Gongora 3,4 , Basar Sareyyupoglu 3 , Ian Collier 1 , Sherry Alvarado 3 , Aasya Nasar 5 , Kenton Zehr 3 1 Division of Cardiology, Scott & White Healthcare, Texas A & M HSC College of Medicine, Temple, USA 2 Current Address: Department of Cardiology, Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children’s Hospital, Spokane, USA 3 Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Scott & White Healthcare, Texas A & M HSC College of Medicine, Temple, USA 4 Current Address: Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, USA 5 Department of Hospital Pharmacy, Scott and White Hospital, Texas A & M HSC College of Medicine, Temple, USA Email: * nandini.nair@gmail.com Received 1 January 2014; revised 1 February 2014; accepted 8 February 2014 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract The increased use of mechanical circulatory support has led to a rise in infectious complications in the recent years predisposing this population of patients to higher morbidity and mortality. In this study, we report a significantly lower rate of driveline infections of 0.12 episodes/patient-year as compared to the rates reported in the existing literature in patients with the HMII (Heartmate II). The study is limited by the fact that it is based on a small population of patients and was conducted retrospectively making recall bias hard to rule out. It is strictly restricted to one type of conti- nuous flow pump (HMII) solely to decrease variations in the data reviewed. The exact cause of the low infection rate noted in this study is difficult to define. However, detailed teaching to the care- givers and the patient as well as close follow-ups in the perioperative period may substantially contribute to the outcome noted. Continued research limited to similar continuous flow ventricu- lar assist devices in larger study populations would shed light on defining causes of infections in this population and developing robust algorithms to prevent such complications. Keywords Driveline Infections, Continuous Flow Pumps * Corresponding author.