10/23/2026
Surgical site infections are among the most studied problems in healthcare, and among the most stubborn.
Every best practice exists because someone noticed a source of risk and decided it wasn’t acceptable.
As International Infection Prevention Week wraps up, here’s one more for that list: the lead apron.
Surgical teams wear them for hours, often inches from the sterile field. In OR settings, 87.8% were found contaminated and 12% tested positive for MRSA (Gilat et al., 2020).
Yet 27.2% of aprons are never cleaned by their department.
A contaminated X-ray garment in the OR adds risk, and it’s one of the simplest contributors that can be taken away.
Taking it away looks like this: professional cleaning and disinfection verified with ATP testing, annual x-ray inspection, and documented records in RadComply so your team can prove it whenever someone asks.
Every gap closed in SSI prevention started with someone noticing it. Thank you to the infection preventionists who keep noticing.