Surgical teams received more ammunition in their quest to avoid wrong-site surgery when the Joint Commission’s Center for Transforming Healthcare issued its latest set of guidelines, called the Targeted Solutions Tool (TST). Released February 14, 2012, the TST is available free to Joint Commission-accredited hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs).…

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For the first time, starting this month, hospitals will need to report surgical site infection (SSI) rates for 2 procedures, colon surgery and abdominal hysterectomy, to get their full Medicare payment update in 2014. The list of procedures is likely to expand. It’s easy to think of infection rates as…

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A surgical site infection (SSI) prevention “bundle” is helping OR teams at Maine Medical Center (MMC) in Portland to further a strategic goal of preventing SSIs. Known as Operation Zero, or “Op-Z,” the initiative is led by the chief of surgery, Brad Cushing, MD, with inspiration from a family whose…

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The devil really is in the details. That's a key message from a national project to prevent wrong-site surgery. Five hospitals and three surgery centers have worked with the Joint Commission's Center for Transforming Healthcare (CTH) to measure defects in their own processes and come up with targeted ways to…

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For the past four years, Rhode Island Hospital (RIH) in Providence has reviewed its processes for preventing wrongsite surgery from top to bottom. The hospital has been under the microscope after several widely publicized incidents dating back to 2007. The hospital has been fined by the state and successfully passed…

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There's no shortage of literature on preventing orthopedic surgical site infections (SSIs). But how do you translate the evidence into practical strategies that are meaningful to clinicians on the front lines? A new guide aims to help. The Guide to the Prevention of Orthopedic Surgical Site Infections from the Association…

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