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Surgeon-Specific Wound Infection Rates-A Potentially Dangerous and Misleading Strategy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2016

William E. Scheckler
William E. Scheckler*
Affiliation:
Department of Family Medicine and Practice, University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison, Wisconsin
*
Department of Family Practice and Medicine, University of Wisconsin Medical School, 777 South Mills Street, Madison, WI 53 715
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Extract

Some colleagues are now touting the calculation and confidential reporting of surgeon-specific wound infection rates as the most important mechanism to reduce nosocomial surgical wound infections.' Several studies purport to show either a decline of surgical wound infections after such reporting is introduced or to demonstrate large differences in rates of wound infections among surgeons in a specific hospital. The purpose of this article is to clarify the numerous problems and deficiencies in the development of this concept and to show the essential statistical implausibility of demonstrating its effectiveness.

Type
Perspective
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , April 1988 , pp. 145 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1988

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