The postoperative wound infection experience in 11 Israeli hospitals was investigated with two objectives: (1) to utilize the variability among hospitals for a better understanding of the determinants of these infections, and (2) to present surgeons and infection control teams with information upon which they can take action. This article summarizes the methods that were applied to maximize the uniformity of information obtained from hospitals. (1) The same kind of patients were sampled in every hospital. (2) The data collection system was standardized, and analyzed for errors. The overall error rate was small (2%) but there were potential problem areas, such as missing information on underlying diagnoses (12%). Few errors (1%) were found in the nurses' observations of the wounds. (3) All wound infections were diagnosed in a uniform manner by convening a panel of four specialists at the central Israeli Study of Surgical Infections (ISSI) office. (4) The definition of infection that was finally chosen for this multicenter study had to be broadened to include, in addition to pus, “discharge other than pus,” because of the higher reliability among panel members. This definition was also clinically valid in terms of morbidity. (5) The rate of postdischarge infections was estimated and was not found to be related to the discharge policies in the various hospitals.
