(Stock Photo) More than a hundred hospitals are coming together to share expertise to try to help save surgical patient's lives.
Six states collaborate to improve surgical care
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FEBRUARY 16, 2006
By Happynews Staff

An unprecedented health care collaboration has been built through the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) 6. More than 100 hospitals in six states led by six Medicare-designated Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) are sharing resources and expertise to define best practices to improve surgical care safety.
Nearly 40 percent of the more than 42 million surgical procedures performed in the United States each year have associated postoperative complications, such as infection, thromboembolic events, respiratory complications and adverse cardiac events. According to a 2003 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, postoperative complications accounted for up to 22 percent of preventable deaths among patients depending on the complication.
"Although some surgical complications are unavoidable, surgical care can be improved through better adherence to evidence-based practice recommendations and by giving more attention to designing systems of care with redundant safeguards," said Nancy Vecchioni, RN, MSN, CPHQ, director of Patient Safety at MPRO, Michigan's QIO. "With hospitals and health care providers from different states in close communication, we can develop processes to reduce the rate of these occurrences."
The participating states include Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin. Each state is working to save lives by reducing surgical complications by 25 percent. The SCIP 6 will regularly hold virtual meetings via the Internet and conference calls. In the virtual meetings, hospitals in each participating state will network and learn from each other, as well as from experts in the field of surgical care.
The group will meet for the first time on Feb. 16, 2006. Leading expert, David Hunt, M.D., FACS, medical officer for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will deliver the keynote address. Dr. Hunt works in the Quality Improvement Group, a division of the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality (OCSQ) in CMS. His clinical expertise centers on intra-abdominal surgery, trauma, and vascular access for hemodialysis and chemotherapy. At CMS, Dr. Hunt is the Government Task Leader for the Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System as well as the Surgical Care Improvement Program.
SCIP 6 is a regional subset of the national SCIP quality partnership. In the national initiative, participating organizations committed to a three-year campaign with a goal of reducing the incidence of surgical complications across the country by 25 percent.
"The benefits for hospitals involved in this unique collaborative are access to resources and successful interventions, technical and data collection support, and peer recognition for quality improvement," said Amy Panagopoulos, director of Acute Care Services for the Illinois Foundation for Quality Health Care - Illinois' QIO.
Under the direction of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) Program consists of a national network of 53 QIOs, responsible for each U.S. state, territory, and the District of Columbia. QIOs work with consumers and physicians, hospitals, and other caregivers to refine care delivery systems to make sure patients get the right care at the right time, particularly patients from underserved populations.
The Program also safeguards the integrity of the Medicare Trust Fund by ensuring that payment is made only for medically necessary services, and investigates beneficiary complaints about quality of care.