CHICAGO: The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) has recognized 83 of an eligible 568 hospitals participating in its adult program for achieving meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care in 2017. ACS NSQIP-participating hospitals are required to track the outcomes of inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures and then analyze their results. These results direct patient safety initiatives within the hospital and impact the quality of surgical care delivered to patients.
The ACS NSQIP recognition program commends a select group of hospitals for achieving a meritorious composite score in either an "All Cases" category or a category which includes only "High Risk" cases. Each composite score was determined through a different weighted formula combining eight outcomes. The outcome performances related to patient management were in the following eight clinical areas:
- Mortality
- Cardiac: cardiac arrest and myocardial infarction
- Pneumonia
- Unplanned intubation
- Ventilator care exceeding 48 hours
- Kidney failure
- Surgical site infection (SSI): superficial incisional SSI, deep incisional SSI, and organ/space SSI
- Urinary tract infection (UTI)
To be eligible for either list, the hospital must have submitted at least one case in each of the calendar years of 2015, 2016, and 2017, though only performance in calendar year 2017 was evaluated for the 2018 meritorious lists. Of the 708 ACS NSQIP hospitals participating in 2017, 568 met the three-year criteria to be eligible for meritorious consideration.
The 83 hospitals achieved the distinction based on their outstanding composite quality score. Risk-adjusted data from the July 2018 ACS NSQIP Semiannual Report, which presents data from the 2017 calendar year, were used to determine which hospitals demonstrated meritorious outcomes. Seventy-one hospitals were recognized on the "All Cases" list and 71 hospitals were recognized on the "High Risk" list; the 71 hospitals represent ten percent of the 2017 ACS NSQIP-participating hospitals. Fifty-eight hospitals were recognized on both the "All Cases" and "High Risk" lists, 12 other hospitals were on just the "All Cases" list, and 13 other hospitals were on the "High Risk" list only—yielding 83 hospitals in total. These meritorious hospitals are also eligible to display these achievements amongst their staff within their institutions and for the general public.
A listing of the recognized hospitals is available online.
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 their severity of illness. 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. Furthermore, when adverse effects from surgical procedures are reduced and/or eliminated, a reduction in health care costs follows. ACS NSQIP is a major program of the ACS and is currently used in nearly 850 adult or pediatric hospitals in the United States and Canada.
