Association of Safety Culture with Surgical Site Infection Outcomes.

Background: Hospital workplace culture may have an impact on surgical outcomes; however, this association has not been established. We designed a study to evaluate the association between safety culture and surgical site infection (SSI).

Study Design: Using the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture and National Healthcare Safety Network definitions, we measured 12 dimensions of safety culture and colon SSI rates, respectively, in the surgical units of Minnesota community hospitals.