Surgical infections arise from bacterial contamination during or after surgery, and abdominal surgeries are the interventions with the highest rate of developing this type of infection. In this context, Nares Arroyo, a student at the UIC Barcelona Doctoral School, has led a study in collaboration with Dr Josep M. Badia, lecturer for the University's Department of Medicine, and researchers at 61 hospitals in Catalonia.

With the title “An interventional nationwide surveillance program lowers postoperative infection rates in elective colorectal surgery. A cohort study (2008-2019)”, the study includes the outcomes of 42,330 surgical interventions in the 2008-2019 period, and has been published in the International Journal of Surgery. The work was created with the main objective of determining the effectiveness of the national VINCat surveillance programme that promises to reduce the rates of these infections. This is a programme of the Catalan Health Service that establishes a unified surveillance system for nosocomial infections in hospitals in Catalonia that collects and analyses data sent by hospitals in order to advise on conceptual and methodological problems.

The results of the study show the benefits of the VINCat programme, both by reducing morbidity and mortality caused by nosocomial infections and by the economic cost they represent.