FORT HOOD, Texas — The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program recognized Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, as one of 89 ACS NSQIP participating hospitals that have achieved meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care in 2019.
“Our team's recognition by the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program is an honor and a testament to their patient-focused approach to care. They are interdisciplinary professionals that contribute to quality and safety during each phase of the patient's experience,” said Lt. Col. James Hacker, deputy commander for surgical services.
As a participant in ACS NSQIP, CRDAMC is required to track the outcomes of inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures and collect data that assesses patient safety and can be used to direct improvement in the quality of surgical care.
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 that includes only “High Risk” cases. Risk-adjusted data from the July 2020 ACS NSQIP Semiannual Report, which presents data from the 2019 calendar year, were used to determine which hospitals demonstrated meritorious outcomes. CRDAMC has been recognized on the “All Cases” Meritorious list.
Each composite score was determined through a different weighted formula that combined eight outcomes. The outcome performances related to patient management were in the following 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)
- Urinary tract infection.
The 89 commended hospitals achieved the distinction based on their outstanding composite quality score across the eight areas listed above. 72 hospitals were initially recognized on the “All Cases” list and 72 hospitals were initially recognized on the “High Risk” list; the 72 hospitals represent ten percent of the 719 calendar-year 2019 ACS NSQIP hospitals. 50 hospitals are recognized on both the “All Cases” and “High Risk” lists, 20 other hospitals are on just the “All Cases” list, and 19 other hospitals are on the “High Risk” list only. This yields 89 hospitals in total.
Three hospitals did not consent to have their name released, resulting in 89 of the 92 initial hospitals appearing on the final list.
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. 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 American College of Surgeons and is currently used in nearly 850 adult and pediatric hospitals.
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