Improving surgery

Hospitals perform more than 42 million inpatient surgeries each year, but complications often follow which can kill or harm patients and lead to extended stays, according to Hospitals & Health Networks magazine.

A group of medical associations has teamed up to form Surgical Care Improvement Project to use evidence-based practices to target four of the most common surgical complications: blood clots, heart attacks, surgical site infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia. The goal is to reduce their incidence by 25 percent by 2010.

Under the program, hospitals are provided evidence-based measures and clinical practice guidelines to support changes that will improve surgical outcomes. For instance, guidelines for the reduction of cardiac events, which occur to 2-5 percent of patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery, outline the appropriate use of beta blockers and how to identify patients who are at risk.

“SCIP will save lives, reduce harm and result in effective and efficient care delivery,” says Nancy Foster, the American Hospital Association’s vice president of quality and patient safety.