Surgical Prophylaxis and Other Complication Avoidance Care Bundles

Individual health care quality measures that have been shown to improve outcome can be combined together into what are called care bundles, with the expectation that this set of practices produces further improvements in outcome. Prevention of surgical site infection is the focus of several quality measures put forward by the Surgical Care Improvement Project; these can collectively be considered a bundle as well. Whether these process measures, which include several components related to the administration of antibiotic prophylaxis, are effective in decreasing rates of surgical site infection has come under considerable debate recently.