Do Spine Surgeons Follow Infection Avoidance Guidelines?
By Admin | June 15, 2024
What are the guidelines? And does lack of knowledge of the guidelines affect SSI rates?
Eleven years ago, 2013, the first of what would be 10 different Best Practice Guidelines regarding surgical site infections (SSI) following pediatric deformity surgery was issued to the broader spine surgery community in the U.S. and Europe.
While rates of SSI in spine surgery have decreased in the ensuing decade, in 2022 surgeons from the Harms Study Group and the Pediatric Spine Study Group decided to update these guidelines to incorporate the most recent evidence and experience. The newly updated guidelines also include guidance on factors associated with increased SSI risk.
At the same time, Michael Vitale, M.D., M.P.H., founder of the Project for Safety in Spine Surgery, and his group of co-authors asked the important question—how well do spine surgeons comply with these multiple sets of SSI avoidance guidelines?
Vitale and his research team collected SSI guideline compliance data from surgeons in both North America and Europe and published...(More)
For more info please read, Do Spine Surgeons Follow Infection Avoidance Guidelines?, by Orthopedics This Week
