A surgical team has told how it cut excessively high infection rates by dramatically reducing the number of people coming in and out of the operating theatre.
The Canadian surgical team found the doors of their theatres were opening and closing up to 70 times while they undertook procedures.
Staff were entering and leaving to retrieve charts, instruments and equipment or simply to take a break, they noted.
Yesterday they reported how they reduced the number of door openings to an average of little more than three per case.
This may have contributed to rates of orthopaedic surgical site infection falling from 2.8% to 2.1%.
The work was reported to a meeting of the American College of Surgeons in San Diego, California, USA.
To reduce traffic through the door, entries were banned between the opening and closure of the joint capsule and staff were told to communicate by phone.
Staff who had to enter a theatre were required to record their reason.
Surgeon Jason Forbes, of Peace Arch Community Hospital, British Columbia, said: "Those SSIs were a high outlier and an area that needed urgent correction."
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