In recent years there has been an emphasis on making surgery less risky by using efforts such as a checklist approach and those targeted at reducing the incidence of post-surgical infections. Data showing how a hospital performs on certain measures in that latter arena are publicly available. But a study says the publicly reported measures do not actually correlate with post-operation infection rates. As a result, picking a hospital on the basis of how often it administers antibiotics within an hour before surgery is not going to help avoid an infection, the study found.
