Dr Kylie Sandy-Hodgetts, a senior research fellow at UWA’s School of Biomedical Sciences, was judged the best of 20 international entrants in the ‘Innovation in Surgical Site Infection’ category of the Journal of Wound Care & World Union of Wound Healing Societies Awards. Dr Sandy-Hodgetts’ research has drawn attention to the importance of predicting at-risk patients, the accurate assessment of wound infection after surgery and whether infection is at play, while also providing a new diagnostic tool for clinicians. Her research calls for a clinicians to change how they view and predict surgical wound complications such as dehiscence in patients before surgery. Dehiscence is where the edges of a surgical wound come apart. The risk assessment tool provides health care providers with the opportunity to identify and manage the risk of surgical wound dehiscence before a patient undergoes surgery. The diagnostic surgical wound dehiscence grading system developed by Dr Sandy-Hodgetts was integrated into an international clinical consensus document, which allows clinicians to accurately diagnose and classify the wound breakdown and whether infection has played a role. The awards are usually held as a gala dinner at the association’s annual congress, recognising international excellence in the practice and research of wound care. Founded in Australia in 2000, the World Union of Wound Healing Societies is the premier wound care professional association and represents more than 90 per cent of all practising wound care specialists in the world. Members are drawn from wound care-related associations worldwide, and the association encourages a global approach to education, research and health care delivery to achieve optimal outcomes for patients with acute and chronic wounds.