Quality Improvement in Focus

ACS Partners with The John A. Hartford Foundation to Enhance and Expand Its Geriatric Surgery Verification Program

Last week the ACS Geriatric Surgery Verification (GSV) Program and The John A. Hartford Foundation (JAHF) announced their work on a new partnership to improve surgical care for older adults while serving diverse populations across the nation. The GSV Program is designed to ensure appropriate, safe, high-quality surgical care for older adults aligned with their care goals and values.

With support from JAHF, the ACS is using the 3-year award to evaluate the content, implementation, and outcomes of the GSV Program as it is put into place in real settings, and to make any necessary adaptive changes to foster broad dissemination of this program around the US, including rural settings and safety-net hospitals. A key part of this work will include developing and incorporating standards for palliative care—a current gap in the GSV Program—and then determining opportunities for alignment with other existing JAHF and ACS quality improvement programs.

"We want to make quality surgical care available to all older adults across the US and this project takes a big step in that direction. Our goal for evaluating how the GSV Program is functioning in the real world is to gain insight to adjust and align program standards so the GSV framework truly fits and benefits all hospitals and their older surgical patients—regardless of a hospital's size, location, population served, or teaching status," said Clifford Y. Ko, MD, MSHS, FACS, FASCRS, project principal investigator and Director, ACS Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care.