Post by Stijn de Jonge, MD Ph.D.

It takes tireless effort of a small army and a lot of patience, but EPOCH is out! Special thanks to Quirine Boldingh and Niels Wolfhagen for getting this project off the ground and completing it, and to Marja Boermeester, Markus Hollmann and Marcel G.W. Dijkgraaf, PhD for their Mentorship. We did not see the revolutionary decline in SSI incidence that we had hoped for but EPOCH does highlight that the stakes for SSI prevention remain high. Despite implementation of the latest guideline recommendations through seamless collaboration between anesthesiologists and surgeons, SSI occurred in roughly 18% of cases after major abdominal surgery with far reaching consequences for patients, hospitals and society at large. Given the current guideline recommendations and efforts to implement these globally, these findings have important practice and policy implications. While implementation efforts should focus on interventions that have been proven beyond any doubt such as hand hygiene, surgical site preparation and adequate use of preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis, research into new interventions that may help further reduce this risk remains urgently needed. Stay posted for publication of the economic outcome data! Many thanks to PhD Wouter Bom Linda Posthuma Jochem Scheijmans Bart van der Leeuw Joost van der Hoeven Jens-Peter Hering Eric Sonneveld Otto van Geffen Eddy Hendriks Ewoud Kluyver Ahmet D. Luc van Lonkhuijzen Gerda Kuijpers Johanna van Duin Quirine Boldingh Niels Wolfhagen Marja Boermeester, Markus Hollmann and Marcel G.W. Dijkgraaf, ZonMw Zorgverzekeraars Nederland Johnson & Johnson MedTech, https://lnkd.in/eqA4Sifa