Health Sciences North was recognized by the American College of Surgeons’ Clinical Congress in San Diego, California, as one of 66 participating hospitals that have achieved meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care.
This Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) places HSN in the top 10 per cent of NSQIP participating hospitals. A total of 680 hospitals were included in the 2016-17 report.
As a participant in ACS NSQIP, HSN is required to track the outcomes of inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures and collect data that directs patient safety and the quality of surgical care improvements.
The ACS NSQIP recognition program commends a select group of hospitals for achieving a composite meritorious outcome related to patient management in eight clinical areas: mortality, unplanned intubation, ventilator > 48 hours, renal failure, cardiac incidents (cardiac arrest and myocardial infarction); respiratory (pneumonia); SSI (surgical site infections-superficial and deep incisional and organ-space SSIs); or urinary tract infection.
The 66 hospitals commended achieved the distinction based on their outstanding composite quality score across the eight areas listed above. Risk-adjusted data from the July 2017 ACS NSQIP Semiannual Report, which presents data from the 2016 calendar year, were used to determine which hospitals demonstrated meritorious outcomes.
“HSN has participated in the NSQIP Program since June 2016, and we are proud to have earned this international ranking,” said Dr. Robert Smith, HSN’s Medical Lead, Quality and Patient Safety/Quality and Risk.
“The benefit for patients is fewer complications, better surgical outcomes and shorter hospital stays. For physicians, they have access to better data and more robust reports to guide surgical care and decision-making.”
ACS NSQIP is the only nationally validated quality improvement program that measures and enhances the care of surgical patients. This program measures the actual surgical results 30 days postoperatively as well as risk adjusts patient characteristics to compensate for differences among patient populations and acuity levels.
The goal of ACS NSQIP is to reduce surgical morbidity (infection or illness related to a surgical procedure) and surgical mortality (death related to a surgical procedure) and to provide a firm foundation for surgeons to apply what is known as the “best scientific evidence” to the practice of surgery.
“We are very proud of the Surgical Program team and of our achievements,” said Mary Yanchuk, quality manager, surgical program, in a press release.
“The clinical reviewers who collect this data work closely with front line staff to identify improvement opportunities in our processes to continuously improve our patient outcomes. We are in the top 10 per cent of NSQIP participating hospitals, and we want to keep improving this standing.”
