American College of Surgeons and Surgical Infection Society: Surgical Site Infection Guidelines, 2016 Update.

Kristen A. Ban; Joseph P. Minei; Christine Laronga; Brian G. Harbrecht; Eric H. Jensen; Donald E. Fry; Kamal M F Itani; Patchen Dellinger; Clifford Y. Ko; Therese M. Duane

Review

American College of Surgeons and Surgical Infection Society: Surgical Site Infection Guidelines, 2016 Update.

February 1, 2017

Ban KA, Minei JP, Laronga C, et al. J Am Coll Surg. 2017;224(1):59-74.

View more articles from the same authors.

Surgical site infections are a persistent and costly challenge to patient safety. These guidelines provide recommendations to reduce this common hospital-acquired condition, including policies for surgeon attire, hand hygiene, and equipment sterilization.

PubMed citation

Available at

Free full text

Related Resources From the Same Author(s)

Evidence review conducted for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Safety Program for Improving Surgical Care and Recovery: focus on anesthesiology for colorectal surgery.

May 9, 2018

Outcomes of concurrent operations: results from the American College of Surgeons' National Surgical Quality Improvement Program.

October 11, 2017

The aging physician and the medical profession: a review.

August 9, 2017

A case for improving measurement of intraoperative iatrogenic injuries.

July 23, 2014

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guideline for the Prevention of Surgical Site Infection, 2017.

May 10, 2017

Inflammation and the Host Response to Injury, a Large-Scale Collaborative Project: patient-oriented research core—standard operating procedures for clinical care. II. Guidelines for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in the trauma patient.

May 31, 2006

Publicly available hospital comparison web sites: determination of useful, valid, and appropriate information for comparing surgical quality.

September 26, 2007

Underlying reasons associated with hospital readmission following surgery in the United States.

February 18, 2015

Improving safety and quality of care with enhanced teamwork through operating room briefings.

July 23, 2014

Identifying risks and opportunities in outpatient surgical patient safety: a qualitative analysis of Veterans Health Administration staff perceptions.

January 31, 2018

How does patient safety culture in the operating room and post-anesthesia care unit compare to the rest of the hospital?

April 1, 2009

Development and measurement of perioperative patient safety indicators.

March 18, 2015

Surgeons' disclosures of clinical adverse events.

July 27, 2016

The influence of resident involvement on surgical outcomes.

January 30, 2005

Gender-based differences in surgical residents' perceptions of patient safety, continuity of care, and well-being: an analysis from the Flexibility in Duty Hour Requirements for Surgical Trainees (FIRST) trial.

March 15, 2017

Teamwork, communication and safety climate: a systematic review of interventions to improve surgical culture.

June 10, 2015

Validity of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Patient Safety Indicators at an academic medical center.

August 21, 2013

Optimal preoperative assessment of the geriatric surgical patient: a best practices guideline from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program and the American Geriatrics Society.

October 10, 2012

Using estimated true safety event rates versus flagged safety event rates: does it change hospital profiling and payment?

May 21, 2014

Association of the 2011 ACGME resident duty hour reform with general surgery patient outcomes and with resident examination performance.

January 14, 2015

Patient characteristics and the occurrence of never events.

February 24, 2010

Preparing clinicians for transitioning patients across care settings and into the home through simulation.

July 25, 2018

Association of the 2011 ACGME resident duty hour reform with postoperative patient outcomes in surgical specialties.

August 12, 2015

Association between surgeon technical skills and patient outcomes.

September 9, 2020

Partnered pharmacist charting on admission in the general medical and emergency short-stay unit—a cluster-randomised controlled trial in patients with complex medication regimens.

August 17, 2016

Patient safety in trauma: maximal impact management errors at a level I trauma center.

March 12, 2008

Reducing drug prescription errors and adverse drug events by application of a probabilistic, machine-learning based clinical decision support system in an inpatient setting.

August 21, 2019

Association of surgical resident wellness with medical errors and patient outcomes.

May 6, 2020

Improving detection of intraoperative medical errors (iMEs) and intraoperative adverse events (iAEs) and their contribution to postoperative outcomes.

March 6, 2019

Development of trigger tools for surveillance of adverse events in ambulatory surgery.

November 10, 2010

Effects of resident duty hour reform on surgical and procedural patient safety indicators among hospitalized Veterans Health Administration and Medicare patients.

July 1, 2009

Prolonged hospital stay and the resident duty hour rules of 2003.

January 13, 2010

Guidelines for the prevention of intravascular catheter-related infections.

May 25, 2011

A new frontier in patient safety.

June 1, 2011

Evaluation of organizational culture among different levels of healthcare staff participating in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 100,000 Lives Campaign.

February 29, 2012

Development and testing of tools to detect ambulatory surgical adverse events.

June 5, 2013

Establishing a simulation center for surgical skills: what to do and how to do it.

September 12, 2007

A method for measuring system safety and latent errors associated with pediatric procedural sedation.

July 27, 2005

Changes in safety attitude and relationship to decreased postoperative morbidity and mortality following implementation of a checklist-based surgical safety intervention.

February 9, 2011

A comparative analysis of incident reporting lag times in academic medical centres in Japan and the USA.

April 28, 2010

Delays and errors in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation by pediatric residents during simulated cardiopulmonary arrests.

October 14, 2009

Did duty hour reform lead to better outcomes among the highest risk patients?

November 4, 2009

A case of transfusion error in a trauma patient with subsequent root cause analysis leading to institutional change.

June 15, 2016

Supporting second victims of patient safety events: shouldn't these communications be covered by legal privilege?

February 12, 2014

Clinical handover of the critically ill postoperative patient: an integrative review.

April 15, 2015

Anticipated consequences of the 2011 duty hours standards: views of internal medicine and surgery program directors.

July 18, 2012

The "Big Dog" effect: variability assessing the causes of error in diagnoses of patients with lung cancer.

July 19, 2006

The impact of resident duty hour reform on hospital readmission rates among Medicare beneficiaries.

April 27, 2011

Applying trigger tools to detect adverse events associated with outpatient surgery.

March 16, 2011

Teaching hospital five-year mortality trends in the wake of duty hour reforms.

August 7, 2013

Impact of a reengineered electronic error-reporting system on medication event reporting and care process improvements at an urban medical center.

September 3, 2014

Evaluating implementation of a rapid response team: considering alternative outcome measures.

May 7, 2014

Dissecting communication barriers in healthcare: a path to enhancing communication resiliency, reliability, and patient safety.

November 28, 2018

Eradicating medical student mistreatment: a longitudinal study of one institution's efforts.

August 29, 2012

Impact of duty hour regulations on medical students' education: views of key clinical faculty.

July 23, 2008

Human-based errors involving smart infusion pumps: a catalog of error types and prevention strategies.

September 9, 2020

National cluster-randomized trial of duty-hour flexibility in surgical training.

February 10, 2016

Infection preventionist checklist to improve culture and reduce central line–associated bloodstream infections.

December 8, 2010

Doing the right things and doing them the right way: association between hospital guideline adherence, dosing safety, and outcomes among patients with acute coronary syndrome.

June 3, 2015

The impact of shift patterns on junior doctors' perceptions of fatigue, training, work/life balance and the role of social support.

December 22, 2010

A surgical safety checklist to reduce morbidity and mortality in a global population.

January 21, 2009

The Team Checkup Tool: evaluating QI team activities and giving feedback to senior leaders.

October 8, 2008

Validity of selected patient safety indicators: opportunities and concerns.

October 27, 2010

Detecting adverse events in surgery: comparing events detected by the Veterans Health Administration Surgical Quality Improvement Program and the Patient Safety Indicators.

June 4, 2014

Identifying causes of adverse events detected by an automated trigger tool through in-depth analysis.

October 20, 2010

An evaluation of a collaborative, safety focused, nurse–pharmacist intervention for improving the accuracy of the medication history.

November 20, 2013

View the world through a different lens: shadowing another provider.

October 8, 2008

Variation in caregiver perceptions of teamwork climate in labor and delivery units.

July 5, 2006

Wrong-site nerve blocks: a systematic literature review to guide principles for prevention.

August 8, 2018

The extent and importance of unintended consequences related to computerized provider order entry.

May 16, 2007

Global oximetry: an international anaesthesia quality improvement project.

October 21, 2009

Survey shows that at least some physicians are not always open or honest with patients.

February 22, 2012

Validating the Patient Safety Indicators in the Veterans Health Administration: do they accurately identify true safety events?

November 2, 2011

Prevalence and predictors of delayed clinical diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes: a longitudinal cohort study.

November 14, 2018

Handoffs and teamwork: a framework for care transition communication.

June 29, 2022

Smart pumps improve medication safety but increase alert burden in neonatal care

December 4, 2019

Toward learning from patient safety reporting systems.

January 10, 2007

Identification of in-hospital complications from claims data. Is it valid?

March 6, 2005

Improving measurement in clinical handover.

August 19, 2009

Association of postoperative readmissions with surgical quality using a Delphi consensus process to identify relevant diagnosis codes.

May 16, 2018

Are opioid dependence and methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) documented in the medical record? A patient safety issue.

August 5, 2009

Improving patient safety in intensive care units in Michigan.

June 25, 2008

Hospital board checklist to improve culture and reduce central line–associated bloodstream infections.

November 3, 2010

Excess dosing of antiplatelet and antithrombin agents in the treatment of non–ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes.

January 11, 2006

Electronic health records and adverse drug events after patient transfer.

December 8, 2010

Requirements for implementing a 'just culture' within healthcare organisations: an integrative review.

June 21, 2023

Paramedic intubation errors: isolated events or symptoms of larger problems?

March 15, 2006

Pharmacy–nursing intervention to improve accuracy and completeness of medication histories.

April 28, 2010

Defining and measuring patient safety.

March 6, 2005

Cost-effective enhancement of claims data to improve comparisons of patient safety.

June 27, 2007

Medication reconciliation in a community pharmacy setting.

August 11, 2010

Planning and implementing a systems-based patient safety curriculum in medical education.

August 13, 2008

What is patient safety culture? A review of the literature.

July 28, 2010

A medical resident–pharmacist collaboration improves the rate of medication reconciliation verification at discharge.

September 30, 2015

The economic consequences of medical injuries: implications for a no-fault insurance plan.

March 6, 2005

Use of nondisclosure agreements in medical malpractice settlements by a large academic health care system.

May 27, 2015

Building the bridge to quality: an urgent call to integrate quality improvement and patient safety education with clinical care

October 2, 2019

Disclosing large scale adverse events in the US Veterans Health Administration: lessons from media responses.

April 13, 2016

April 8, 2009

Bar-code verification: reducing but not eliminating medication errors.

December 12, 2012

Related Resources

WebM&M Cases

Uterine Artery Injury during Cesarean Delivery Leads to Cardiac Arrests and Emergency Hysterectomy

March 27, 2024

WebM&M Cases

When Vomit Gets in the Way: Aspiration Resulting in Death During Endoscopy

February 28, 2024

Association of hospital markup with preventable adverse events following pancreatic surgery in the United States.

February 7, 2024

Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health: Consensus Bundle on Sepsis in Obstetric Care.

October 11, 2023

Preventing surgical site infections: implementing strategies throughout the perioperative continuum.

July 19, 2023

Understanding ultrarare adverse events - lessons learned from a twelve-year review of intraoperative deaths at an academic medical center.

June 21, 2023

Preventing surgical site infections: are safety climate level and its strength associated with self-reported commitment to, subjective norms toward, and knowledge about preventive measures?

June 14, 2023

WebM&M Cases

Endotracheal Tube Fallout in a Patient with Severe Obesity During Eye Surgery.

March 29, 2023

National Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures (NatSSIPs2).

February 7, 2023

Surgical site infection prevention: a review.

February 1, 2023

Errors in surgery: a case control study.

December 14, 2022

ISMP Guidelines for Safe Medication Use in Perioperative and Procedural Settings.

August 24, 2022

Tipping the balance: a systematic review and meta-ethnography to unfold the complexity of surgical antimicrobial prescribing behavior in hospital settings.

August 10, 2022

Decontamination of Surgical Instruments.

June 8, 2022

Fast tracking in cardiac surgery: is it safe?

May 11, 2022

APSF endorsed statement on revising recommendations for patient monitoring during anesthesia.

May 4, 2022

Hospital acquired infections in surgical patients: impact of COVID-19-related infection prevention measures.

April 20, 2022

Guideline for Prevention of Unintentionally Retained Surgical Items.

January 19, 2022

Worldwide incidence of surgical site infections in general surgical patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 488,594 patients.

December 8, 2021

Decreased incidence of cesarean surgical site infection rate with hospital-wide perioperative bundle.

September 29, 2021

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: Surgical safety checklists for cesarean delivery.

September 22, 2021

Preventable morbidity and mortality among non-trauma emergency surgery patients: the role of personal performance and system flaws in adverse events.

May 12, 2021

Guidelines for opioid prescribing in children and adolescents after surgery: an expert panel opinion.

December 2, 2020

WebM&M Cases

Delayed Management of Necrotizing Soft Tissue Infection – Who does the Patient Belong To?

April 29, 2020

Perioperative COVID-19 defense: an evidence-based approach for optimization of infection control and operating room management.

April 22, 2020

Implementation of a comprehensive unit-based safety program to reduce surgical site infections in cesarean delivery.

April 22, 2020

Patient Safety Primers

Surgical Site Infections

September 7, 2019

ASHP guidelines on perioperative pharmacy services.

August 28, 2019

American Geriatrics Society 2019 Updated AGS Beers Criteria for Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Older Adults.

June 12, 2019

Transition planning for the senior surgeon: guidance and recommendations from the Society of Surgical Chairs.

May 29, 2019

See More About The Topic

Operating Room

Health Care Providers

Surgery

Surgical Site Infections

Epidemiology of Errors and Adverse Events

American College of Surgeons and Surgical Infection Society: Surgical Site Infection Guidelines, 2016 Update.

Surgical Site Infections

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

American College of Surgeons and Surgical Infection Society: Surgical Site Infection Guidelines, 2016 Update.

Surgical Site Infections

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue Logged In

Submit Your Innovations

Continue as a Guest

Continue logged in

New Users to the PSNet site