A new collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) to prevent surgical site infections (SSIs) and other adverse outcomes intends to maximize the use of electronic health records for collecting and submitting SSI data to their patient safety networks. The partnership is intended to close gaps between direct patient care and public health. EHRs will help the two organizations collect "the right data in the right way" to maximize patient safety, according to ACS, and the initiative also will work to standardize SSI definitions and the data to be reported. FierceHealthIT