Reducing surgical site infection incidence through a network: results from the French ISO-RAISIN surveillance system.

Summary Surgical-site infections (SSIs) are a key target for nosocomial infection control programmes. We evaluated the impact of an eight-year national SSI surveillance system named ISO-RAISIN (infection du site operatoire – Reseau Alerte Investigation Surveillance des Infections). Consecutive patients undergoing surgery were enrolled during a three-month period each year and surveyed for 30 days following surgery. A standardised form was completed for each patient including SSI diagnosis according to standard criteria, and several risk factors such as wound class, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score, operation duration, elective/emergency surgery, and type of surgery. From 1999 to 2006, 14 845 SSIs were identified in 964 128 patients (overall crude incidence: 1.54%) operated on in 838 participating hospitals. The crude overall SSI incidence decreased from 2.04% to 1.26% ( P P