What is it about?
Despite strong evidence on how to prevent and treat infections in surgical patients, many best practices are not consistently applied in everyday care. In May 2019 a multidisciplinary task force of Italian experts - surgeons, infectious diseases specialists, microbiologists, pharmacists, nurses and others - met in Ancona to clarify key issues across the whole surgical pathway, from before the operation to after discharge. This document summarizes the statements they agreed on, covering surgical site infection prevention, antibiotic prophylaxis before surgery, infection control and hand hygiene, multidrug-resistant organisms, and antimicrobial stewardship in the treatment of surgical infections.
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Photo by Martha Dominguez de Gouveia on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Surgical infections are largely preventable, but prevention requires coordinated action by everyone involved in a patient care. These consensus statements offer hospitals a practical framework to bring evidence-based practices into routine surgical care and to reduce infections and antibiotic resistance through collaboration.
Perspectives
I firmly believe that infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship only work when they are a shared responsibility. Participating in the Ancona task force with colleagues from so many disciplines was a concrete demonstration of the collaborative approach that surgical patients need.
Professor Stefano Di Bella
Universita degli Studi di Trieste
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A proposal for a comprehensive approach to infections across the surgical pathway, World Journal of Emergency Surgery, February 2020, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1186/s13017-020-00295-3.
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