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Our team being tasked with reducing SSIs in colorectal proce-
dures wasn't our first attempt at looking at SSIs in a surgical
service line. The hospital had put together a team several years
ago to study and implement new infection control protocols, but it
wasn't nearly as successful. There are a few reasons I think we
found success this time:
• Involve the stakeholders. This time around, there was a clear
focus on involving people from each of the areas impacted by the
higher SSI rates instead of having leadership or outside infection
control personnel lead the changes. If you're in the process of
putting together an SSI prevention team, make sure the staff at
the bedside are actively involved. In our situation, this meant
including nurses, surgical techs, hospital-owned physicians and
private physicians, so we could gather everyone's input when
making system-wide changes.
• Get leadership on board. One of the things we found most
helpful was that our chief of surgery was a champion to the new
initiatives. He was willing to talk to the colorectal surgeons and
share with them why it was important to include these SSI proto-
cols and how it would benefit them in the long run. Having him
champion that cause was a huge help in converting the naysayers
to believers.
• Know your numbers. Surgeons are competitive by nature,
and they want what's best for their patients. So, once our colorec-
tal SSI rates began decreasing after implementing the new proto-
col, we heard from our gynecology team that they also wanted to
work with the team to implement similar steps to reduce their
How to Get Everyone On Board with Change
TIPS FOR SUCCESS
