249 - Reducing Surgical Infections: Evidence-Based Care in Colorectal Surgery

Description: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are a critical concern in colorectal surgeries, contributing to increased morbidity and healthcare costs. Perioperative nurses play a vital role in infection prevention, ensuring evidence-based practices are consistently applied throughout the surgical continuum. In response to a rise in deep tissue SSIs, an interdisciplinary task force — led by a perioperative Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) — developed an intraoperative care bundle to enhance infection control measures and improve patient outcomes. The primary objective was to standardize intraoperative nursing care to minimize variability and strengthen SSI prevention strategies. Perioperative nurses collaborated with an ERAS Coordinator, Operating Room Supervisor, Infectious Disease RN, Quality & Patient Safety Specialist, Pharmacist, and Colorectal Surgeons. Through a systematic literature review and clinical practice assessment, the team identified gaps in infection prevention across the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative phases, with a particular focus on intraoperative practices due to their potential for high-impact improvements.
The resulting SSI care bundle emphasized evidence-based interventions tailored for intraoperative nursing staff, integrating best practices into electronic medical records (EMR) for streamlined documentation and compliance tracking. Our clinical excellence care bundle included updating the physician order sets to provide guidance on antibiotic selection, standardization of skin prep, fascial wound protectors and irrigations practices of the abdominal cavity. We also implemented best practice for closure practices which included, gown and glove changes, dedicated closure trays and the use of antibiotic coated sutures.
Perioperative nurses were instrumental in updating intraoperative nursing practice, supporting revised antibiotic and physician order sets, and facilitating education sessions for the surgical teams. Additionally, a compliance dashboard was created to monitor adherence to the bundle and provide ongoing performance insights. We are able to now compare our different campuses, operating rooms and physicians on these metrics.
This initiative highlights the indispensable role of perioperative nurses in infection prevention and surgical quality improvement. Their leadership in implementing evidence-based interventions, standardizing practices, and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration reinforces their impact on patient safety and surgical outcomes. By integrating evidence-based SSI prevention strategies into intraoperative nursing workflows, perioperative nurses can significantly help reduce infection rates and advance surgical care excellence.