Special Editions Archive

Ethical decision-making during a disaster. Do you agree with the life-and-death choice made by the medical staff of one New Orleans hospital in the desperate days after Hurricane Katrina?

Patient Safety: 54 years of progress ... or stasis? Leadership and culture change are needed to turn the tide.

Substance abuse in surgery. Providers with alcohol and drug problems put themselves, and their patients, at risk.

Making sure it's sterile. Sterilization assurance confirms what you can't see.

5 tips for better instrument decontamination. Removing variables and automating the process are the keys to better cleaning.

Burning platforms, coordinated care and SSI prevention. Q&A with Zeev Kain, MD, PhD, anesthesiologist and perioperative surgical home proponent.

The link between warming and wound infections. The latest evidence shows that hypothermia during surgery is associated with greater infection risk.

Look beneath the surface. Take an in-depth look at how you disinfect your clinical environment.

Standardize your skin prep practices. Get patients, surgeons and staff on board with your pre-op bathing, hair-clipping and skin-antisepsis protocols.

Take the bundled approach to infection control. Standardized protocols optimize efforts to prevent SSIs.