HealthCert Blog

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released their first-ever global guidelines to prevent surgical site infection. The Australasian Journal of Dermatology is cited as a reference in the guidelines with a paper on Mohs surgery by Tai et al.

The guidelines include a list of 29 recommendations designed to address the increasing burden of health care- associated infections on both patients and health care systems globally, alongside supporting tools issued by WHO. WHO will continue to issue tools in support of guideline implementation throughout 2017.

Preventing infections before, during and after surgery

The guidelines include 13 recommendations for the period before surgery and 16 for preventing infections during and after surgery. They range from precautions such as ensuring that patients bathe or shower before surgery and the best way for surgical teams to clean their hands to guidance on when to use antibiotics to prevent infections, what disinfectants to use before incision, and which sutures to use.

No international evidence-based guidelines had previously been available and there are inconsistencies in the interpretation of evidence and recommendations in existing national guidelines. The new WHO guidelines are valid for any country and suitable to local adaptations, and take account of the strength of available scientific evidence, the cost and resource implications, and patient values and preferences. They complement WHO’s “Surgical Safety Checklist”, which gives a broad range of safety measures, by giving more detailed recommendations on preventing infections.